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SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 

Inventor of the Telegraph 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

MORSE 

and the Telegraph 

THOMPSON 

and the Cable 

BELL 

and the Telephone 

MARCONI 

and the Wireless Telegraph 

CARTY 

and the Wireless Telephone 

BY 
WALTER KELLOGG TOWERS 



ILLUSTRATED 




HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK & LONDON 






ii 



z\^ 



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\1 



Masters of Space 



Copyright, 191 7. by Harper & Brothers 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published February, 1917 



CI.A457212 



JL 2.- 



TO 
MY CO-LABORER AND COMPANION 

Berenice Laura Towers 

WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND ASSISTANCE 

WERE CONSTANT IN THE GATHERING 

AND PREPARATION OF MATERIAL 

FOR THIS VOLUME. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Preface 7 

I. Communication Among the Ancients ... 13 

II. Signals Past and Present 23 

III. Forerunners of the Telegraph 36 

IV. Inventions of Sir Charles Wheatstone . . 45 

V. The Achievement of Morse 55 

VI. "What Hath God Wrought?" 75 

VII. Development of the Telegraph System . . 90 

VIII. Telegraphing Beneath the Sea 106 

IX. The Pioneer Atlantic Cable 117 

X. -A Successful Cable Attained 130 

XI. Alexander Graham Bell, the Youth . . . 140 

XII. The Birth of the Telephone 151 

XIII. The Telephone at the Centennial .... 165 

XIV. Improvement and Expansion 176 

XV. Telegraphing Without Wires 188 

XVI. An Italian Boy's Work 199 

XVII. Wireless Telegraphy Established .... 209 

XVIII. The Wireless Serves the World .... 220 

XIX. Speaking Across the Continent 231 

XX. Telephoning Through Space 250 

Appendix A 264 

Appendix B 282 

Index 299 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse Frontispiece 

Morse's First Telegraph Instrument . . . Facing p. 72 

Cyrus W. Field " 114 

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) " 114 

The "Great Eastern" Laying the Atlantic 

Cable, 1866 " 136 

Alexander Graham Bell " 160 

Thomas A. Watson " 160 

Professor Bell's Vibrating Reed .... " 168 

Professor Bell's First Telephone " 168 

The First Telephone Switchboard Used in 

New Haven, Conn., for Eight Subscribers " 168 

Early New York Exchange " 168 

Professor Bell in Salem, Mass., and Mr. Wat- 
son in Boston, Demonstrating the Tele- 
phone before Audiences in 1877 .... " 168 
Doctor Bell at the Telephone Opening the 

New York-Chicago Line, October 18, 1892 " 168 

Guglielmo Marconi " 202 

A Remarkable Photograph Taken Outside of 
the Clifden Station While Messages Were 

Being Sent Across to Cape Race .... " 222 

Marconi Station at Clifden, Ireland ... " 222 



PREFACE 

THIS is the story of talking at a distance, 
of sending messages through space. It is 
the story of great men — Morse, Thomson, Bell, 
Marconi, and others — and how, with the aid of 
men like Field, Vail, Carty, Pupin, the scientist, 
and others in both the technical and commer- 
cial fields, they succeeded in flashing both mes- 
sages and speech around the world, with wires 
and without wires. It is the story of how the 
thought of the world has been linked together 
by those modern wonders of science and of 
industry — the telegraph, the submarine cable, 
the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and, 
most recently, the wireless telephone. 

The story opens with the primitive methods 
of message-sending by fire or smoke or other 
signals. The life and experiments of Morse 
are then pictured and the dramatic story of 
the invention and development of the tele- 

7 



PREFACE 

graph is set forth. The submarine cable fol- 
lowed with the struggles of Field, the business 
executive, and Thomson, the inventor and 
scientific expert, which" finally culminated in 
success when the Great Eastern landed a 
practical cable on the American coast. The 
early life of Alexander Graham Bell was full 
of color, and I have told the story of his 
patient investigations of human speech and 
hearing, which finally culminated in a prac- 
tical telephone. There follows the fascinating 
story of Marconi and the wireless telegraph. 
Last comes the story of the wireless telephone, 
that newest wonder which has come among 
us so recently that we can scarcely realize 
that it is here. An inner view of the mar- 
velous development of the telephone is added 
in an appendix. 

The part played by the great business 
leaders who have developed and extended 
the new inventions, placing them at the ser- 
vice of all, has not been forgotten. Not only 
have means of communication been discov- 
ered, but they have been improved and put 
to the widest practical use with remarkable 



PREFACE 

efficiency and celerity. The stories of these 
developments, in both the personal and execu- 
tive sides, embody the true romance of the 
modern business world. 

The great scientists and engineers who have 
wrought these wonders which have had so 
profound an influence upon the life of the 
world lived, and are living, lives filled with 
patient effort, discouragement, accomplish- 
ment, and real romance. They are interest- 
ing men who have done interesting things. 
Better still, they have done important, useful 
things. This book relates their life stories in 
a connected form, for they have all worked 
for a similar end. The story of these men, 
who, starting in early youth in the pursuit of 
a great idea, have achieved fame and success 
and have benefited civilization, cannot but 
be inspiring. They did not stumble upon 
their discoveries by any lucky accident. They 
knew what they sought, and they labored 
toward the goal with unflagging zeal. Had 
they been easily discouraged we might still 
be dependent upon the semaphore and the 
pony express for the transmission of news. 

9 



PREFACE 

But they persevered until success was at- 
tained, and in the account of their struggle to 
success every one may find encouragement 
in facing his own tasks. 

One can scarce overestimate the value of 
modern methods of communication to the 
world. So much of our development has 
been more or less directly dependent upon it 
that it is difficult to fancy our situation 
without the telegraph and telephone. The 
diligence with which the ancients sought 
speedy methods for the sending of messages 
demonstrates the human need for them. The 
solution of this great problem, though long 
delayed, came swiftly, once it was begun. 

Even the simple facts regarding "Masters 
of Space'* and their lives of struggle and ac- 
complishment in sending messages between 
distant points form an inspiring story of great 
achievement. 

W. K. T. 



MASTERS OF SPACE 



MASTERS OF SPACE 



COMMUNICATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

Signaling the Fall of Troy — Marine Signaling among the 
Argonauts — Couriers of the Greeks, Romans, and Aztecs — 
Sound-signaling — Stentorophonic Tube — The Shouting 
Sentinels — The Clepsydra — Signal Columns — Indian Fire 
and Smoke Signals. 

IT was very early in the history of the world 
that man began to feel the urgent need of 
communicating with man at a distance. When 
village came into friendly contact with vil- 
lage, when nations began to form and expand, 
the necessity of sending intelligence rapidly 
and effectively was clearly realized. And yet 
many centuries passed without the discovery 
of an effective system. Those discoveries were 
to be reserved for the thinkers of our age. 

13 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

We can understand the difficulties that 
beset King Agamemnon as he stood at the 
head of his armies before the walls of Troy. 
Many were the messages he would want to 
send to his native kingdom in Greece during 
the progress of the siege. Those at home 
would be eager for news of the great enter- 
prise. Many contingencies might arise which 
would make the need for aid urgent. Cer- 
tainly Queen Clytemnestra eagerly awaited 
word of the fall of the city. Yet the slow 
progress of couriers must be depended upon. 

One device the king hit upon which was 
such as any boy might devise to meet the 
simplest need. "If I can go skating to- 
night,' ' says Johnny Jones to his chum, "I'll 
put a light in my window." Such is the simple 
device which has been used to bear the sim- 
plest message for ages. So King Agamemnon 
ordered beacon fires laid on the tops of Mount 
Ida, Mount Athos, Mount Cithaeron, and 
on intervening eminences. Beside them he 
placed watchers who were always to have their 
faces toward Troy. When Troy fell a near-by 
fire was kindled, and beacon after beacon 

14 



AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

sprang into flame on the route toward Greece. 
Thus was the message of the fall of Troy 
quickly borne to the waiting queen by this 
preconceived arrangement. Yet neither King 
Agamemnon nor his sagest counselors could 
devise an effective system for expediting 
their messages. 

Prearranged signals were used to convey 
news in even earlier times. Fire, smoke, and 
flags were used by the Egyptians and the 
Assyrians previous to the Trojan War. The 
towers along the Chinese Wall were more than 
watch-towers; they were signal-towers. A 
flag or a light exhibited from tower to tower 
would quickly convey a certain message 
agreed upon in advance. Human thought 
required a system which could convey more 
than one idea, and yet skill in conveying news 
grew slowly. 

Perhaps the earliest example of marine 
signaling of which we know is recorded of the 
Argonautic Expedition. Theseus devised the 
use of colored sails to convey messages from 
ship to ship of the fleet, and caused the death 
of his father by his failure to handle the sig- 

2 15 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

nals properly. Theseus sailed into conflict 
with the enemy with black sails set, a signal 
of battle and of death. With the battle 
over and himself the victor, he forgot to 
lower the black flag and set the red flag 
of victory. His father, the aged iEgeus, see- 
ing the black flag, believed it reported his 
son's death, and, flinging himself into the 
sea, was drowned. 

In time it occurred to the great monarchs 
as their domains extended to establish relays 
of couriers to bear the messages which must 
be carried. Such systems were established 
by the Greeks, the Romans, and the Aztecs. 
Each courier would run the length of his own 
route and would then shout or pass the mes- 
sage to the next runner, who would speed it 
away in turn. Such was the method em- 
ployed by our own pony-express riders. 

An ancient Persian king thought of having 
the messages shouted from sentinel to senti- 
nel, instead of being carried more slowly by 
relays of couriers. So he established sentinels 
at regular intervals within hearing of one 

another, and messages were shouted from one 

16 



AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

to the other. Just fancy the number of senti- 
nels required to establish a line between dis- 
tant cities, and the opportunities for misunder- 
standing and mistake! The ancient Gauls 
also employed this method of communication. 
Caesar records that the news of the massacre 
of the Romans at Orleans was sent to Au- 
vergne, a distance of nearly one hundred and 
fifty miles, by the same evening. 

Though signaling by flashes of light oc- 
curred to the ancients, we have no knowledge 
that they devised a way of using the light- 
flashes for any but the simplest prearranged 
messages. The mirrors of the Pharaohs were 
probably used to flash light for signal pur- 
poses. We know that the Persians applied 
them to signaling in time of war. It is re- 
ported that flashes from the shields were used 
to convey news at the battle of Marathon. 
These seem to be the forerunners of the helio- 
graph. But the heliograph using the dot- 
and-dash system of the Morse code can be 
used to transmit any message whatever. The 
ancients had evolved systems by which any 
word could be spelled, but they did not seem 

17 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

to be able to apply them practically to their 
primitive heliographs. 

An application of sound - signaling was 
worked out for Alexander the Great, which 
was considered one of the scientific wonders 
of antiquity. This was called a stentoro- 
phonic tube, and seems to have been a sort of 
gigantic megaphone or speaking-trumpet. It 
is recorded that it sent the voice for a dozen 
miles. A drawing of this strange instrument 
is preserved in the Vatican. 

Another queer signaling device, built and 
operated upon a novel principle, was an even 
greater wonder among the early peoples. 
This was known as a clepsydra. Fancy a 
tall glass tube with an opening at the bottom 
in which a sort of faucet was fixed. At vary- 
ing heights sentences were inscribed about 
the tube. The tube, being filled with water, 
with a float at the top, all was ready for sig- 
naling any of the messages inscribed on the 
tube to a station within sight and similarly 
equipped. The other station could be located 
as far away as a light could be seen. The 

station desiring to send a message to another 

iS 



AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

exhibited its light. When the receiving sta- 
tion showed its light in answer, the tap was 
opened at the bottom of the tube in each 
station. When the float dropped until it was 
opposite the sentence which it was desired 
to transmit, the sending station withdrew its 
light and closed the tap. This was a signal 
for the receiving station to stop the flow of 
water from its tube. As the tubes were just 
alike, and the water had flowed out during 
the same period at equal speed, the float at the 
receiving station then rested opposite the 
message to be conveyed. 

Many crude systems of using lights for 
signaling were employed. Lines of watch- 
towers were arranged which served as signal- 
stations. The ruins of the old Roman and 
Gallic towers may still be found in France. 
Hannibal erected them in Africa and Spain. 
Colored tunics and spears were also used for 
military signals in the daytime. For in- 
stance, a red tunic displayed meant prepare for 
battle; while a red spear conveyed the order 
to sack and devastate. 

An ancient system of camp signals from 
19 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

columns is especially interesting as showing 
a development away from the prearranged 
signals of limited application. For these camp 
signals the alphabet was divided into five or 
six parts, and a like number of columns erected 
at each signal-station. Each column repre- 
sented one group of letters. Suppose that 
we should agree to get along without the 
Q and the Z and reduce our own alphabet to 
twenty-four letters for use in such a system. 
With six columns we would then have four 
letters for each column. The first column 
would be used to signal A, B, C, and D. One 
light or flag shown from column one would 
represent A, two flags or lights B, and so on. 
Thus any word could be spelled out and any 
message sent. Without doubt the system 
was slow and cumbersome, but it was a step 
in the right direction. 

The American Indians developed methods 
of transmitting news which compare very 
favorably with the means employed by the 
ancients. Smoke-rings and puffs for the day- 
time, and fire-arrows at night, were used by 
them for the sending of messages. Smoke 

20 



AMONG THE ANCIENTS 

signals are obtained by building a fire of 
moist materials. . The Indian obtains his 
smoke-purls by placing a blanket or robe 
over the fire, withdrawing it for an instant, 
and then replacing it quickly. In this way 
puffs of smoke may be sent aloft as frequently 
as desired. 

A column of smoke-puffs was used as a 
warning signal, its meaning being: Look out, 
the enemy is near. , One smoke -puff was 
a signal for attention; two puffs indicated 
that the sender would camp at that place. 
Three puffs showed that the sender was in 
danger, as the enemy was near. 

Fire-arrows shot across the sky at night 
had a similar meaning. The head of the ar- 
row was dipped in some highly inflammable 
substance and then set on fire at the instant 
before it was discharged from the bow. One 
fire-arrow shot into the sky meant that the 
enemy were near; two signaled danger, and 
three great danger.' When the Indian shot 
many fire-arrows up in rapid succession he 
was signaling to his friends that his enemies 
were too jnany for m him. _ Two arrows dis- 

21 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

charged into the air at the same time indicated 
that the party sending them was about to 
attack. Three indicated an immediate at- 
tack. A fire-arrow discharged diagonally 
across the sky indicated the direction in 
which the sender would travel. Such were 
the methods which the Indians used, working 
out different meanings for the signals in the 
various tribes. 

Very slight progress was made in message- 
sending in medieval times, and it was the 
middle of the seventeenth century before 
even signal systems were attained which were 
in any sense an improvement. For many 
centuries the people of the world existed, de- 
vising nothing better than the primitive meth- 
ods outlined above. 



II 

SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

Marine and Military Signals — Code Flags — Wig -wag — Sem- 
aphore Telegraphs — Heliographs — Ardois Signals — Sub- 
marine Signals. 

IN naval affairs some kind of an effective 
signal system is imperative. Even in the 
ordinary evolutions of a fleet the commander 
needs some better way of communicating with 
the ship captains than despatching a messen- 
ger in a small boat. The necessity of quick 
and sure signals in time of battle is obvious. 
Yet for many centuries naval signals were of 
the crudest. 

The first distinct advance over the primitive 
methods by which the commander of one 
Roman galley communicated with another 
came with the introduction of cannon as a 
naval arm. The use of signal-guns was soon 
thought of, and war-ships used their guns for 

23 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

signal purposes as early as the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Not long after came the square-rigged 
ship, and it soon occurred to some one that 
signals could be made by dropping a sail 
from the yard-arm a certain number of times. 

Up to the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury the possibilities of the naval signal 
systems were limited indeed. Only a few pre- 
arranged orders and messages could be con- 
veyed. Unlimited communication at a dis- 
tance was still impossible, and there were no 
means of sending a message to meet an un- 
foreseen emergency. So cumbersome were the 
signal systems in use that even though they 
would convey the intelligence desired, the 
speaking-trumpet or a courier was employed 
wherever possible. 

To the officers of the British navy of the 
seventeenth century belongs the credit for 
the first serious attempt to create a system 
of communication which would convey any 
and all messages. It is not clear whether 
Admiral Sir William Penn or James II. es- 
tablished the code. It was while he was 
Duke of York and the commander of Bri- 

24 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

tain's navy, that the James who was later 
to be king took this part in the advancement 
of means of communication. Messages were 
sent by varying the position of a single signal 
flag. 

In 1780 Admiral Kempenfeldt thought of 
adding other signal flags instead of depending 
upon the varied positions of a single signal. 
From his plan the flag signals now in use by 
the navies of the world were developed. The 
basis of his system was the combining of dis- 
tinct flags in pairs. 

The work of Admiral Philip Colomb marked 
another long step forward in signaling be- 
tween ships. While a young officer he de- 
veloped a night-signal system of flashing 
lights, still in use to some extent, and which 
bears his name. Colomb's most important 
contribution to the art of signaling was his 
realization of the utility of the code which 
Morse had developed in connection with the 
telegraph. 

Code flags, which are largely used between 
ships, have not been entirely displaced by the 
wireless. The usual naval code set consists 

25 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

of a set of alphabet flags and pennants, ten 
numeral flags, and additional special flags. 
This of course provides for spelling out any 
conceivable message by simply hoisting let- 
ter after letter. So slow a method is seldom 
used, however. Various combinations of let- 
ters and figures are used to indicate set terms 
or sentences set forth in the code-book. Thus 
the flags representing A and E, hoisted to- 
gether, may be found on reference to the 
code-book to mean, "Weigh anchor." Each 
navy has its own secret code, which is care- 
fully guarded lest it be discovered by a pos- 
sible enemy. Naval code-books are bound 
with metal covers so that they may be thrown 
overboard in case a ship is forced to surrender. 

The international code is used by ships of 
all nations. It is the universal language of 
the sea, and by it sailors of different tongues 
may communicate through this common 
medium. Any message may be conveyed 
by a very few of the flags in combination. 

The wig-wag system, a favorite and fa- 
miliar method of communication with every 

Boy Scout troop, is in use by both army and 

26 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

navy. The various letters of the alphabet 
are indicated by the positions in which the 
signaler holds his arms. Keeping the arms 
always forty-five degrees apart, it is possible 
to read the signals at a considerable distance. 
Navy signalers have become very efficient 
with this form of communication, attaining 
a speed of over fifteen words a minute. 

A semaphore is frequently substituted for 
the wig-wag flags both on land and on sea. 
Navy semaphores on big war-ships consist of 
arms ten or twelve feet long mounted at the 
masthead. The semaphore as a means of 
communication was extensively used on land 
commercially as well as by the army. A regu- 
lar semaphore telegraph system working in 
relays over considerable distances was in 
operation in France a century ago. Other 
semaphore telegraphs were developed in Eng- 
land. 

The introduction of the Morse code and 
its adaptation to signaling by sight and 
sound did much to simplify these means of 
communication. The development of signal- 
ing after the adoption of the Morse code, 

27 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

though it occurred subsequent to the in- 
troduction of the telegraph, may properly be 
spoken of here, since the systems dependent 
upon sight and sound grow from origins 
more primitive than those which depend 
upon electricity. Up to the middle of the 
nineteenth century armies had made slight 
progress in perfecting means of communica- 
tion. The British army had no regular signal 
service until after the recommendations of 
Colomb proved their worth in naval affairs. 
The German army, whose systems of com- 
munication have now reached such perfec- 
tion, did not establish an army signal service 
until 1902. 

The simplicity of the dot and dash of the 
Morse code makes it readily available for 
almost any form of signaling under all pos- 
sible conditions. Two persons within sight 
of each other, who understand the code, may 
establish communication by waving the most 
conspicuous object at hand, using a short 
swing for a dot and a long swing for a dash. 
Two different shapes may also be exhibited, 

one representing a dot and the other a dash. 

28 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

The dot-and-dash system is also admirably 
adapted for night signaling. A search-light 
beam may be swung across the sky through 
short and long arcs, a light may be exhibited 
and hidden for short and long periods, and so 
on. Where the search-light may be played 
upon a cloud it may be seen for very consid- 
erable distances, messages having been sent 
forty miles by this means. Fog-horns, whis- 
tles, etc., may be similarly employed during 
fogs or amid thick smoke. A short blast 
represents a dot, and a long one a dash. 

The heliograph, which established com- 
munication by means of short and long light- 
flashes, is another important means of sig- 
naling to which the Morse code has been 
applied. This instrument catches the rays of 
the sun upon a mirror, and thence casts them 
to a distant receiving station. A small key 
which throws the mirror out of alignment 
serves to obscure the flashes for a space at 
the will of the sender, and so produces short 
or long flashes. 

The British army has made wide use of the 

heliograph in India and Africa. During the 

29 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

British-Boer War it formed the sole means 
of communication between besieged garrisons 
and the relief forces. Where no mountain 
ranges intervene and a bright sun is available, 
heliographic messages may be read at a dis- 
tance of one hundred and fifty miles. 

While the British navy used flashing lights 
for night signals, the United States and most 
other navies adopted a system of fixed colored 
lights. The system in use in the United 
States Navy is known as the Ardois system. 
In this system the messages are sent by four 
lights, usually electric, which are suspended 
from a mast or yard-arm. The lights are 
manipulated by a keyboard situated at a 
convenient point on the deck. A red lamp 
is flashed to indicate a dot in the Morse code, 
while a white lamp indicates a dash. The 
Ardois system is also used by the Army. The 
perfection of wireless telegraphy has caused 
the Ardois and other signal systems depend- 
ing upon sight or sound to be discarded in all 
but exceptional cases. The wig- wag and 
similar systems will probably never be en- 
tirely displaced by even such superior sys- 

3° 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

terns as wireless telegraphy. The advantage 
of the wig-wag lies in the fact that no ap- 
paratus is necessary and communication may 
thus be established for short distances almost 
instantly. Its disadvantages are lack of 
speed, impenetrability to dust, smoke, and 
fog, and the short ranges over which it may 
be operated. 

There is another form of sound - signaling 
which, though it has been developed in recent 
years, may properly be mentioned in connec- 
tion with earlier signal systems of similar 
nature. This is the submarine signal. We 
have noted that much attention was paid to 
communication by sound-waves through the 
medium of the air from the earliest times. 
It was not until the closing years of the past 
century, however, that the superior possi- 
bilities of water as a conveyer of sound were 
recognized. 

Arthur J. Mundy, of Boston, happened to 
be on an American steamer on the Missis- 
sippi River in the vicinity of New Orleans. 
It was rumored that a Spanish torpedo-boat 
had evaded the United States war vessels 

3 31 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

and made its way up the great river. The 
general alarm and the impossibility of de- 
tecting the approach of another vessel set 
Mundy thinking. It seemed to him that 
there should be some way of communicating 
through the water and of listening for sounds 
underwater. He recalled his boyhood ex- 
periments in the old swimming-hole. He re- 
membered how distinctly the sound of stones 
cracked together carried to one whose ears 
were beneath the surface. Thus the idea of 
underwater signaling was born. 

Mundy communicated this idea to Elisha 
Gray, and the two, working together, evolved 
a successful submarine signal system. It was 
on the last day of the nineteenth century 
that they were able to put their experiments 
into practical working form. Through a well 
in the center of the ship they suspended an 
eight-hundred-pound bell twenty feet be- 
neath the surface of the sea. A receiving 
apparatus was located three miles distant, 
which consisted simply of an ear-trumpet 
connected to a gas-pipe lowered into the sea. 
The lower end of the pipe was sealed with a 

32 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

diaphragm of tin. When submerged six feet 
beneath the surface the strokes of the bell 
could be heard. Then a special electrical 
receiver of extreme sensitiveness, known as 
a microphone, was substituted and connected 
at the receiving station with an ordinary- 
telephone receiver. With this receiving ap- 
paratus the strokes of the bell could be heard 
at a distance of over ten miles. 

This system has had a wide practical ap- 
plication for communication both between 
ship and ship and between ship and shore. 
Most transatlantic ships are now equipped 
with such a system. The transmitter con- 
sists of a large bell which is actuated either 
by compressed air or by an electro-magnetic 
system. This is so arranged that it may be 
suspended over the side of the ship and low- 
ered well beneath the surface of the water. 
The receivers consist of microphones, one on 
each side of the ship. The telephone re- 
ceivers connected to the two microphones 
are mounted close together on an instrument 
board on the bridge of the ship. The two 
instruments are used when it is desired to 
' N 33 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

determine the direction from which the sig- 
nals come. If the sound is stronger in the 
'phone on the right-hand side of the ship the 
commander knows that the signals are com- 
ing from that direction. If the signals are 
from a ship in distress he may proceed tow- 
ard it by turning his vessel until the sound 
of the signal-bell is equal in the two receivers. 
The ability to determine the direction from 
which the signal comes is especially valuable 
in navigating difficult channels in foggy wea- 
ther. Signal-bells are located near light- 
houses and dangerous reefs. Each calls its 
own number, and the vessel's commander may 
thus avoid obstructions and guide the ship 
safely into the harbor. The submarine signal 
is equally useful in enabling vessels to avoid 
collision in fogs. Because water conducts 
sound much better than air, submarine signals 
are far better than the fog-horn or whistles. 

The submarine signal system has also been 
applied to submarine war-ships. By this 
means alone may a submarine communicate 
with another, with a vessel on the surface, or 
with a shore station. 

34 



SIGNALS PAST AND PRESENT 

An important and interesting adaptation of 
the marine signal was made to meet the sub- 
marine warfare of the great European con- 
flict. At first it seemed that battle-ship and 
merchantman could find no way to locate 
the approach of an enemy submarine. But 
it was found that by means of the receiving 
apparatus of the submarine telephone an ap- 
proaching submarine could be heard and lo- 
cated. While the sounds of the submarine's 
machinery are not audible above the water, 
the delicate microphone located beneath the 
water can detect them. Hearing a submarine 
approaching beneath the surface, the mer- 
chantman may avoid her and the destroyers 
and patrol-boats may take means to effect her 
capture. 



Ill 

FORERUNNERS OF THE TELEGRAPH 

From Lodestone to Ley den Jar — The Mysterious "C. M." — 
Spark and Frictional Telegraphs — The Electro-magnet — 
Davy and the Relay System. 

THE thought and effort directed toward 
improving the means of communication 
brought but small results until man discovered 
and harnessed for himself a new servant — 
electricity. The story of the growth of mod- 
ern means of communication is the story 
of the application of electricity to this par- 
ticular one of man's needs. The stories of the 
Masters of Space are the stories of the men 
who so applied electricity that man might 
communicate with man. 

Some manifestations of electricity had been 
known since long before the Christian era. 
A Greek legend relates how a shepherd named 
Magnes found that his crook was attracted 

36 



FORERUNNERS 

by a strange rock. Thus was the lodestone, 
the natural magnetic iron ore, discovered, 
and the legend would lead us to believe that 
the words magnet and magnetism were de- 
rived from the name of the shepherd who 
chanced upon this natural magnet and the 
strange property of magnetism. 

The ability of amber, when rubbed, to 
attract straws, was also known to the early 
peoples. How early this property was found, 
or how, we do not know. The name elec- 
tricity is derived from elektron f the Greek 
name for amber. 

The early Chinese and Persians knew of the 
lodestone, and of the magnetic properties of 
amber after it has been rubbed briskly. The 
Romans were familiar with these and other 
electrical effects. The Romans had discov- 
ered that the lodestone would attract iron, 
though a stone wall intervened. They were 
fond of mounting a bit of iron on a cork 
floating in a basin of water and watch it 
follow the lodestone held in the hand. It is 
related that the early magicians used it as a 
means of transmitting intelligence. If a needle 

37 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

were placed upon a bit of cork and the whole 
floated in a circular vessel with the alphabet 
inscribed about the circle, one outside the 
room could cause the needle to point toward 
any desired letters in turn by stepping to the 
proper position with the lodestone. Thus a 
message could be sent to the magician inside 
and various feats of magic performed. Our 
own modern magicians are reported as avail- 
ing themselves of the more modern applica- 
tions of electricity in somewhat similar fashion 
and using small, easily concealed wireless tel- 
egraph or telephone sets for communication 
with their confederates off the stage. 

The idea of encircling a floating needle with 
the alphabet was developed into the sympa- 
thetic telegraph of the sixteenth century, 
which was based on a curious error. It was 
supposed that needles which had been touched 
by the same lodestone were sympathetic, and 
that if both were free to move one would imi- 
tate the movements of another, though they 
were at a distance. Thus, if one needle were 
attracted toward one letter after the other, 
and the second similarly mounted should fol- 

38 



FORERUNNERS 

low its movements, a message might readily 
be spelled out. Of course the second needle 
would not follow the movements of the first, 
and so the sympathetic telegraph never 
worked, but much effort was expended upon 
it. 

In the mean time others had learned that 
many substances besides amber, on being 
rubbed, possessed magnetic properties. Ma- 
chines by which electricity could be produced 
in greater quantities by friction were produced 
and something was learned of conductors. 

Benjamin Franklin sent aloft his historic 
kite and found that electricity came down the 
silken cord. He demonstrated that frictional 
and atmospheric electricity are the same. 
Franklin and others sent the electric charge 
along a wire, but it did not occur to them to 
endeavor to apply this to sending messages. 

Credit for the first suggestion of an electric 
telegraph must be given to an unknown 
writer of the middle eighteenth century. In 
the Scots Magazine for February 17, 1755, 
there appeared an article signed simply, 
"C. M.," which suggested an electric tele- 

39 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

graph. The writer's idea was to lay an insu- 
lated wire for each letter of the alphabet. 
The wires could be charged from an electrical 
machine in any desired order, and at the 
receiving end would attract disks of paper 
marked with the letter which that wire repre- 
sented, and so any message could be spelled 
out. The identity of " C. M. " has never been 
established, but he was probably Charles Mor- 
rison, a Scotch surgeon with a reputation for 
electrical experimentation, who later emi- 
grated to Virginia. Of course "C. M.'s" 
telegraph was not practical, because of the 
many wires required, but it proved to be a 
fertile suggestion which was followed by many 
other thinkers. One experimenter after an- 
other added an improvement or devised a new 
application. 

A French scientist devised a telegraph which 
it is suspected might have been practical, but 
he kept his device secret, and, as Napoleon 
refused to consider it, it never was put to a 
test. An Englishman devised a frictional tele- 
graph early in the last century and endeavored 

to interest the Admiralty. He was told that 

40 



FORERUNNERS 

the semaphore was all that was required for 
communication. Another submitted a sim- 
ilar system to the same authorities in 1816, 
and was told that "telegraphs of any kind are 
now wholly unnecessary." An American in- 
ventor fared no better, for one Harrison Gray 
Dyar, of New York, was compelled to abandon 
his experiments on Long Island and flee be- 
cause he was accused of conspiracy to carry 
on secret communication, which sounded very 
like witchcraft to our forefathers. His tele- 
graph sent signals by having the electric spark 
transmitted by the wire decompose nitric acid 
and so record the signals on moist litmus 
paper. It seems altogether probable that had 
not the discovery of electro-magnetism of- 
fered improved facilities to those seeking a 
practical telegraph, this very chemical tele- 
graph might have been put to practical use. 

In the early days of the nineteenth century 
the battery had come into being, and thus a 
new source of electric current was available 
for the experimenters. Coupled with this im- 
portant discovery in its effect upon the de- 
velopment of the telegraph was the discovery 

41 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

of electro-magnetism. This was the work of 
Hans Christian Oersted, a native of Denmark. 
He first noticed that a current flowing through 
a wire would deflect a compass, and thus 
discovered the magnetic properties of the elec- 
tric current. A Frenchman named Ampere, 
experimenting further, discovered that when 
the electric current is sent through coils of 
wire the magnetism is increased. 

The possibility of using the deflection of a 
magnetic needle by an electric current passing 
through a wire as a means of conveying in- 
telligence was quickly grasped by those who 
were striving for a telegraph. Experiments 
with spark and chemical telegraphs were 
superseded by efforts with this new discovery. 
Ampere, acting upon the suggestion of La 
Place, an eminent mathematician, published 
a plan for a feasible telegraph. This was later 
improved upon by others, and it was still 
early in the nineteenth century that a model 
telegraph was exhibited in London. 

About this time two professors at the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen were experimenting with 

telegraphy. They established an experimental 

42 



FORERUNNERS 

line between their laboratories, using at first 
a battery. Then Faraday discovered that an 
electric current could be generated in a wire 
by the motion of a magnet, thus laying the 
basis for the modern dynamo. Professors 
Gauss and Weber, who were operating the 
telegraph line at Gottingen, adapted this new 
discovery to their needs. They sent the mes- 
sage by moving a magnetic key. A current 
was thus generated in the line, and, passing 
over the wire and through a coil at the farther 
end, moved a magnet suspended there. The 
magnet moved to the right or left, depending 
on the direction of the current sent through 
the wire. A tiny mirror was mounted on the 
receiving magnet to magnify its movement 
and so render it more readily visible. 

One Steinheil, of Munich, simplified it and 
added a call-bell. He also devised a recording 
telegraph in which the moving needle at the 
receiving station marked down its message 
in dots and dashes on a ribbon of paper. 
He was the first to utilize the earth for 
the return circuit, using a single wire for 
despatching the electric current used in sig- 

43 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

naling and allowing it to return through the 
ground. 

In 1837, the same year in which Wheat- 
stone and Morse were busy perfecting their 
telegraphs, as we shall see, Edward Davy ex- 
hibited a needle telegraph in London. Davy 
also realized that the discoveries of Arago 
could be used in improving the telegraph 
and making it practical. Aragp discovered 
that the current passing through a coil of 
wire served to magnetize temporarily a piece 
of soft iron within it. It was this principle 
upon which Morse was working at this time. 
Davy did not carry his suggestions into effect, 
however. He emigrated to Australia, and the 
interruption in his experiments left the field 
open for those who were finally to bring the tele- 
graph into usable form. Davy's greatest con- 
tribution to telegraphy was the relay system 
by which very weak currents could call into 
play strong currents from a local battery, 
and so make the signals apparent at the 
receiving station. 



IV 

INVENTIONS OF SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE 

Wheatstone and His Enchanted Lyre — Wheatstone and Cooke 
— First Electric Telegraph Line Installed — The Capture of 
the "Kwaker" — The Automatic Transmitter. 

BEFORE we come to the story of Samuel 
F. B. Morse and the telegraph which actu- 
ally proved a commercial success as the first 
practical carrier of intelligence which had 
been created for the service of man, we should 
pause to consider the achievements of Charles 
Wheatstone. Together with William Fother- 
gill Cooke, another Englishman, he developed 
a telegraph line that, while it did not attain 
commercial success, was the first working tele- 
graph placed at the service of the public. 

Charles Wheatstone was born near Glouces- 
ter in 1802. Having completed his primary 
schooling, Charles was apprenticed to his 
uncle, who was a maker and seller of musical 

45 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

instruments. He showed little aptitude either 
in the workshop or in the store, and much 
preferred to continue the study of books. 
His father eventually took him from his 
uncle's charge and allowed him to follow his 
bent. He translated poetry from the French 
at the age of fifteen, and wrote some verse of 
his own. He spent all the money he could 
secure on books. Becoming interested in a 
book on Volta's experiments with electricity, 
he saved up his coppers until he could pur- 
chase it. It was in French, and he found the 
technical descriptions rather too difficult for 
his comprehension, so that he was forced to 
save again to buy a French-English dictionary. 
With the aid of this he mastered the volume. 

Immediately his attention was turned tow- 
ard the wonders of the infant science of 
electricity, and he eagerly endeavored to per- 
form the experiments described. Aided by his 
older brother, he set to work on a battery as 
a source of current. Running short of funds 
with which to purchase copper plates, he 
again began to save his pennies. Then the 
idea occurred to him to use the pennies them- 

4 6 



INVENTIONS OF WHEATSTONE 

selves, and his first battery was soon com- 
plete. 

He continued his experiments in various 
fields until, at the age of nineteen, he first 
brought himself to public notice with his 
enchanted lyre. This he placed on exhibi- 
tion in music-shops in London. It consisted 
of a small lyre suspended from the ceiling 
which gave forth, in turn, the sounds of vari- 
ous musical instruments. Really the lyre was 
merely a sounding-box, and the vibrations 
of the music were conveyed from instruments, 
played in the next room, to the lyre through a 
steel rod. The young man spent much time 
experimenting with the transmission of sound. 
Having conveyed music through the steel rod 
to his enchanted lyre, much to the mystifica- 
tion of the Londoners, he proposed to trans- 
mit sounds over a considerable distance by 
this method. He estimated that sound could 
be sent through steel rods at the rate of two 
hundred miles a second and suggested the use 
of such a rod as a telegraph between London 
and Edinburgh. He called his arrangement a 
telephone. 

4 47 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

A scientific writer of the day, commenting 
in a scientific journal on the enchanted lyre 
which Wheatstone had devised, suggested that 
it might be used to render musical concerts 
audible at a distance. Thus an opera per- 
formed in a theater might be conveyed 
through rods to other buildings in the vicin- 
ity and there reproduced. This was never 
accomplished, and it remained for our own 
times to accomplish this and even greater 
wonders. 

Wheatstone also devised an instrument for 
increasing feeble sound, which he called a 
microphone. This consisted of a pair of rods 
to convey the sound vibrations to the ears, 
and does not at all resemble the modern 
electrical microphone. Other inventions in 
the transmission and reproduction of sound 
followed, and he devoted no little attention 
to the construction of improved musical in- 
struments. He even made some efforts to 
produce a practical talking-machine, and was 
convinced that one would be attained. At 
thirty-two he was widely famed as a scientist 
and had been made a professor of experi- 

48 ' 



INVENTIONS OF WHEATSTONE 

mental physics in King's College, London. 
His most notable work at this time was 
measuring the speed of the electric current, 
which up to that time had been supposed to 
be instantaneous. 

By 1835 Wheatstone had abandoned his 
plans for transmitting sounds through long 
rods of metal and was studying the telegraph. 
He experimented with instruments of his own 
and proposed a line across the Thames. It 
was in 1836 that Mr. Cooke, an army officer 
home on leave, became interested in the 
telegraph and devoted himself to putting it on 
a working basis. He had already exhibited a 
crude set when he came to Wheatstone, realiz- 
ing his own lack of scientific knowledge. The 
two men finally entered into partnership, 
Wheatstone contributing the scientific and 
Cooke the business ability to the new enter- 
prise. The partnership was arranged late in 
1837, and a patent taken out on Wheatstone's 
five-needle telegraph. 

In this telegraph a magnetic needle was 
located within a loop formed by the telegraph 
circuit at the receiving end. When the circuit 

49 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

was closed the needle was deflected to one 
side or the other, according to the direction 
of the current. Five separate circuits and 
needles were used, and a variety of signals 
could thus be sent. Five wires, with a sixth 
return wire, were used in the first experimental 
line erected in London in 1837. So in the year 
when Morse was constructing his models 
Wheatstone and Cooke were operating an ex- 
perimental line, crude and impracticable 
though it was, and enjoying the sensations of 
communicating with each other at a distance. 

In 1 84 1 the telegraph was placed on public 
exhibition at so much a head, but it was 
viewed as an entertaining novelty without 
utility by the public at large. After many 
disappointments the inventors secured the co- 
operation of the Great Western Railroad, and 
a line was erected for a distance of thirteen 
miles. But the public would not patronize 
the line until its utility was strikingly demon- 
strated by the capture of the " Kwaker." 

Early one morning a woman was found 
dead in her home in the suburbs of London. 
A man had been observed leaving the house, 

so 



INVENTIONS OF WHEATSTONE 

and his appearance had been noted. Inquiries 
revealed that a man answering his description 
had left on the slow train for London. Without 
the telegraph he could not have been appre- 
hended. But the telegraph was available at 
this point, and his description was telegraphed 
ahead and the police in London were in- 
structed to arrest him upon his arrival. "He 
is dressed as a Quaker," ran the message. 
There was no Q in the alphabet of. the five- 
needle instrument, and so the sender spelled 
Quaker, Kwaker. The clerk at the receiving 
end could not understand the strange word, 
and asked to have it repeated again and 
again. Finally some one suggested that the 
message be completed and the whole was then 
deciphered. When the man dressed as a 
Quaker stepped from the slow train on his 
arrival at London the police were awaiting 
him; he was arrested and eventually confessed 
the murder. The news of this capture and the 
part the telegraph played gave striking proof 
of the utility of the new invention, and public 
skepticism and indifference were overcome. 
By 1845 Wheatstone had so improved his 
51 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

apparatus that but one wire was required. 
The single-needle instrument pointed out the 
letters on the dial around it by successive 
deflections in which it was arranged to move, 
step by step, at the will of the sending station. 
The single-needle instrument, though gen- 
erally displaced by Morse's telegraph, re- 
mained in use for a long time on some English 
lines. Wheatstone had also invented a type- 
printing telegraph, which he patented in 184 1. 
This required two circuits. 

With a working telegraph attained, the 
partners became involved in an altercation 
as to which deserved the honor of inventing 
the same. The quarrel was finally submitted 
to two famous scientists for arbitration. They 
reported that the telegraph was the result of 
their joint labors. To Wheatstone belongs the 
credit for devising the apparatus; to Cooke 
for introducing it and placing it before the 
public in working form. Here we see the com- 
bination of the man of science and the man 
of business, each contributing needed talents 
for the establishment of a great invention on 
a working basis. 

52 



INVENTIONS OF WHEATSTONE 

Wheatstone's researches in the field of elec- 
tricity were constant. In 1840 he devised a 
magnetic clock and proposed a plan by which 
many clocks, located at different points, could 
be set at regular intervals with the aid of 
electricity. Such a system was the forerunner 
of the electrically wound and regulated clocks 
with which we are now so familiar. He also 
devised a method for measuring the resistance 
which wires offer to the passage of an electric 
current. This is known as Wheatstone's 
bridge and is still in use in every electrical and 
physical laboratory. He also invented a 
sound telegraph by which signals were trans- 
mitted by the strokes of a bell operated by the 
current at the receiving end of the circuit. 

The invention of Wheatstone's which 
proved to be of greatest lasting importance 
in connection with the telegraph was the 
automatic transmitter. By this system the 
message is first punched in a strip of paper 
which, when passed through the sending in- 
strument, transmits the message. By this 
means he was able to send messages at the 
rate of one hundred words a minute. This 

53 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

automatic transmitter is much used for press 
telegrams where duplicate messages are to be 
sent to various points. 

The automatic transmitter brought knight- 
hood to its inventor, Wheatstone receiving 
this honor in 1868. Wheatstone took an 
active part in the development of the tele- 
graph and the submarine cable up to the time 
of his death in 1875. 

Wheatstone^ telegraph would have served 
the purposes of humanity and probably have 
been universally adopted, had not a better one 
been invented almost before it was established. 
And it is because Morse, taking up the work 
where others had left off, was able to invent 
an instrument which so fully satisfied the 
requirements of man for so long a period that 
he is known to all of us as the inventor of the 
telegraph. And yet, without belittling the 
part played by Morse, we must recognize 
the important work accomplished by Sir 
Charles Wheatstone. 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

Morse's Early Life — Artistic Aspirations — Studies in Paris — 
— His Paintings — Beginnings of His Invention — The First 
Instrument — The Morse Code — The First Written Message. 

WHEN we consider the youth and imma- 
turity of America in the first half of 
the nineteenth century, it seems the more re- 
markable that the honor of making the first 
great practical application of electricity should 
have been reserved for an American. With 
the exception of the isolated work of Franklin, 
the development of the new science of elec- 
trical learning was the work of Europeans. 
This was natural, for it was Europe which 
was possessed of the accumulated wealth and 
learning which are usually attained only by 
older civilizations. Yet, with all these advan- 
tages, electricity remained largely a scientific 
plaything. It was an American who fully 

55 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

recognized the possibilities of this new force 
as a servant of man, and who was possessed of 
the practical genius and the business ability 
to devise and introduce a thoroughly workable 
system of rapid and certain communication. 

We have seen that Wheatstone was early 
trained as a musician. Samuel Morse began 
life as an artist. But while Wheatstone early 
indicated his lack of interest in music and 
devoted himself to scientific studies while yet 
a youth, Morse's artistic career was of his own 
choosing, and he devoted himself to it for 
many years. This explains the fact that 
Wheatstone attained much scientific success 
before Morse, though he was eleven years his 
junior. 

It was in 1 79 1 that Samuel Morse was born. 
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was the entire 
name with which he was endowed by his 
parents. He came from the sturdiest of Puri- 
tan stock, his father being of English and his 
mother of Scotch descent. His father was 
an eminent divine, and also notable as a 
geographer, being the author of the first 
American geography of importance. His 

56 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

mother also was possessed of unusual talent 
and force. It is interesting to note that 
Samuel Morse first saw the light in Charles- 
town, Massachusetts, at the foot of Breed's 
Hill, but little more than a mile from the birth- 
place of Benjamin Franklin. He came into 
the world about a year after Franklin died. 
It is interesting to believe that some of the 
practical talent of America's first great elec- 
trician in some way descended to Samuel 
Morse. 

He received an unusual education." At the 
age of seven he was sent to a school at An- 
dover, Massachusetts, to prepare him for 
Phillips Academy. At the academy he was 
prepared for Yale College, which he entered 
when fifteen years of age. With the knowl- 
edge of science so small at the time, collegiate 
instruction in such subjects was naturally 
meager in the extreme. Jeremiah Day was 
then professor of natural philosophy at Yale, 
and was probably America's ablest teacher of 
the subject. His lectures upon electricity and 
the experiments with which he illustrated 
them aroused the interest of Morse, as we 

57 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

learn from the letters he wrote to his parents 
at this time. 

One principle in particular impressed Morse. 
This was that "if the electric circuit be inter- 
rupted at any place the fluid will become 
visible, and when it passes it will leave an 
impression upon any intermediate body." 
Thus was it stated in the text-book in use at 
Yale at that time. More than a score of 
years after the telegraph had been achieved 
Morse wrote: 

The fact that the presence of electricity can be 
made visible in any desired part of the circuit was the 
crude^ seed which took root in my mind, and grew into 
form, and ripened into the invention of the telegraph. 

We shall later hear of the occasion which 
recalled this bit of information to Morse's 
mind. 

But though Yale College was at that time 
a center of scientific activity, and Morse 
showed more than a little interest in elec- 
tricity and chemistry, his major interest re- 
mained art. He eagerly looked forward to 
graduation that he might devote his entire 
time to the study of painting. It is significant 

58 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

of the tolerance and breadth of vision of his 
parents that they apparently put no bars in 
the path of this ambition, though they had 
sacrificed to give him the best of collegiate 
trainings that he might fit himself for the 
ministry, medicine, or the law. As a boy of 
fifteen Samuel Morse had painted water-colors 
that attracted attention, and he was possessed 
of enough talent to paint miniatures while at 
Yale which were salable at five dollars apiece, 
and so aided in defraying his college expenses. 

After his graduation from Yale in ijio, 
Morse devoted himself entirely to the study 
of art, still being dependent upon his parents 
for support. He secured the friendship and 
became the pupil of Washington Allston, then 
a foremost American painter. In the summer 
of 1811 Allston sailed for England, and Morse 
accompanied him. In London he came to 
the attention of Benjamin West, then at the 
height of his career, and benefited by his 
advice and encouragement. 

That he had no ambition other than his 
art at this period we may learn from a letter 
he wrote to his mother in 1812. 

59 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

My passion for my art [he wrote] is so firmly rooted 
that I am confident no human power could destroy it. 
The more I study the greater I think is its claim to the 
appellation divine. I am now going to begin a picture 
of the death of Hercules, the figure to be large as life. 

When he had completed this picture to 
his own satisfaction, he showed it to West. 
"Go on and finish it," was West's comment. 
"But it is finished," said Morse. "No, no. 
See here, and here, and here are places you 
can improve it." Morse went to work upon 
his painting again, only to meet the same 
comment when he again showed it to West. 
This happened again and again. When the 
youth had finally brought it to a point where 
West was convinced it was the very best 
Morse could do he had learned a lesson in 
thoroughness and painstaking attention to 
detail that he never forgot. 

That he might have a model for his painting 

Morse had molded a figure of Hercules in 

clay. At the advice of West he entered the 

cast in a competition for a prize in sculpture, 

with the result that he received the prize 

and a gold medal for his work. He then 

60 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

plunged into the competition for a prize and 
medal offered by the Royal Academy for the 
best historical painting. His subject was, 
"The Judgment of Jupiter in the Case of 
Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas." Though he 
completed the picture to the satisfaction of 
West, Morse was not able to remain in London 
and enter it in the competition. The rules 
required that the artist be present in person 
if he was to receive the prize, but Morse was 
forced to return to America. He had been in 
England for four years — a year longer than 
had originally been planned for him — and 
he was out of funds, and his parents could 
support him no longer. 

Morse lived in London during the War of 
1 812, but seems to have suffered no annoy- 
ance other than that of poverty, which the 
war intensified by raising the prices of food 
as well as his necessary artist's materials to 
an almost prohibitive figure. The last of the 
Napoleonic wars was also in progress. News 
of the battle of Waterloo reached London 
but a short time before Morse sailed for 

America. It required two days for the news 

61 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

to reach the English capital. The young 
American, whose inability to sell his paintings 
was driving him from London, was destined to 
devise a system which would have carried the 
great news ' to its destination within a few 
seconds. 

But while he gained fame in America and 
secured praise and attention as he had in 
London, he found art no more profitable. He 
contrived to eke out an existence by painting 
an occasional portrait, going from town to 
town in New England for this purpose. He 
turned from art to invention for a time, join- 
ing with his brother in devising a fire-engine 
pump of an improved pattern. They secured 
a patent upon it, but could not sell it. He 
turned again to the life of a wandering painter 
of portraits. In 1818 he went to Charleston, 
South Carolina, at the invitation of his uncle. 
His portraits proved very popular and he 
was soon occupied with work at good prices. 
This prosperity enabled him to take unto 
himself a wife, and the same year he married 
Lucretia Walker, of Concord, New Hampshire. 

After four years in the South Morse re- 
62 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

turned to the North, hoping that larger op- 
portunities would now be ready for him. 
The result was again failure. He devoted his 
time to huge historical paintings, and the 
public would neither buy them nor pay to 
see them when they were exhibited. Another 
blow fell upon him in 1825 when his wife died. 
At last he began to secure more sitters for 
his portraits, though his larger works still 
failed. He assisted in the organization of the 
National Academy of Design and became its 
first president. In 1829 he again sailed for 
Europe to spend three years in study in the 
galleries of Paris and Rome. Still he failed 
to attain any real success in his chosen work. 
He had made many friends and done much 
worthy work, yet there is little probability 
that he would have attained lasting fame as an 
artist even though his energies had not been 
turned to other interests. 

It was on the packet ship Sully, crossing 
the Atlantic from France, that Morse con- 
ceived the telegraph which was to prove the 
first great practical application of electricity. 
One noon as the passengers were gathered 

5 63 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

about the luncheon-table, a Dr. Charles T. 
Jackson, of Boston, exhibited an electro-mag- 
net he had secured in Europe, and described 
certain electrical experiments he had seen while 
in Paris. He was asked concerning the speed 
of electricity through a wire, and replied that, 
according to Faraday, it was practically 
instantaneous. The discussion recalled to 
Morse his own collegiate studies in electricity, 
and he remarked that if the circuit were in- 
terrupted the current became visible, and that 
it occurred to him that these flashes might 
be used as a means of communication. The 
idea of using the current to carry messages 
became fixed in his mind, and he pondered 
over it during the remaining weeks of the long, 
slow voyage. 

Doctor Jackson claimed, after Morse had 
perfected and established his telegraph, that 
the idea had been his own, and that Morse had 
secured it from him on board the Sully. But 
Doctor Jackson was not a practical man who 
either could or did put any ideas he may have 
had to practical use. At the most he seems 
to have simply started Morse's mind along a 

64 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

new train of thought. The idea of using the 
current as a carrier of messages, though it was 
new to Morse, had occurred to others earlier, 
as we have seen. But at the very outset 
Morse set himself to find a means by which he 
might make the current not only signal the 
message, but actually record it. Before he 
landed from the Sully he had worked out 
sketches of a printing telegraph. In this the 
current actuated an electro-magnet on the 
end of which was a rod. This rod was to 
mark down dots and dashes on a moving tape 
of paper. 

Thus was the idea born. Of course the tele- 
graph was still far from an accomplished fact. 
Without the improved electro-magnets and 
the relay of Professor Henry, Morse had not 
yet even the basic ideas upon which a tele- 
graph to operate over considerable distances 
could be constructed. But Morse was pos- 
sessed of Yankee imagination and practical 
ability. He was possessed of a fair technical 
education for that day, and he eagerly set 
himself to attaining the means to accomplish 
his end. That he realized just what he sought 

65 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

is shown by his remark to the captain of the 
Sully when he landed at New York. "Well, 
Captain/ ' he remarked, "should you hear 
of the telegraph one of these days as the 
wonder of the world, remember that the dis- 
covery was made on board the good ship 
Sully." 

With the notion of using an electro-magnet 
as a receiver, an alphabet consisting of dots 
and dashes, and a complete faith in the prac- 
tical possibilities of the whole, Morse went 
to work in deadly earnest. But poverty still 
beset him and it was necessary for him to 
devote most of his time to his paintings, that 
he might have food, shelter, and the means 
to buy materials with which to experiment. 
From 1832 to 1835 he was able to make but 
small progress. In the latter year he secured 
an appointment as professor of the literature 
of the arts of design in the newly established 
University of the City of New York. He soon 
had his crude apparatus set up in a room at 
the college and in 1835 was able to transmit 
messages. He now had a little more leisure 
and a little more money, but his opportunities 

66 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

were still far from what he would have de- 
sired. The principal aid which came to him 
at the university was from Professor Gale, a 
teacher of chemistry. Gale became greatly 
interested in Morse's apparatus, and was able 
to give him much practical assistance, be- 
coming a partner in the enterprise. Morse 
knew little of the work of other experimenters 
in the field of electricity and Gale was able 
to tell Morse what had been learned by others. 
Particularly he brought to Morse's attention 
the discoveries of another American, Prof. 
Joseph Henry. 

The electro-magnet which actuated the re- 
ceiving instrument in the crude set in use by 
Morse in 1835 had but a few turns of thick 
wire. Professor Henry, by his experiments 
five years earlier, had demonstrated that 
many turns of small wire made the electro- 
magnet far more sensitive. Morse made this 
improvement in his own apparatus. In 1832 
Henry had devised a telegraph very similar to 
that of Morse by which he signaled through a 
mile of wire. His receiving apparatus was an 
electro-magnet, the armature of which struck 

67 



MASTERS OF SPACE , 

a bell. Thus the messages were read by 
sound, instead of being recorded on a moving 
strip of paper as by Morse's system. While 
Henry was possibly the ablest of American 
electricians at that time, he devoted himself 
entirely to science and made no effort to put 
his devices to practical use. Neither did he 
endeavor to profit by his inventions, for he 
secured no patents upon them. 

Professor Henry realized, in common with 
Morse and others, that if the current were 
to be conducted over long wires for consider- 
able distances it would become so weak that 
it would not operate a receiver. Henry 
avoided this difficulty by the invention of 
what is known as the relay. At a distance 
where the current has become weak because 
of the resistance of the wire and losses due to 
faulty insulation, it will still operate a delicate 
electro-magnet with a very light armature 
so arranged as to open and close a local cir- 
cuit provided with suitable batteries. Thus 
the recording instrument may be placed on 
the local circuit, and as the local circuit is 

opened and closed in unison with the main 

68 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

circuit, the receiver can be operated. It was 
the relay which made it possible to extend 
telegraph lines to a considerable distance. 
It is not altogether clear whether Morse 
adopted Henry's relay or devised it for himr 
self. It is believed, however, that Professor 
Henry explained the relay to Professor Gale, 
who in turn placed it before his partner, Morse. 
By 1837 Morse had completed a model, had 
improved his apparatus, had secured stronger 
batteries and longer wires, and mastered the 
use of the relay. It was in this year that the 
House of Representatives ordered the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury to investigate the feasi- 
bility of establishing a system of telegraphs. 
This action urged Morse to complete his ap- 
paratus and place it before the Government. 
He was still handicapped by lack of money, 
lack of scientific knowledge, and the difficulty 
of securing necessary materials and devices. 
To-day the experimenter may buy wire, 
springs, insulators, batteries, and almost any- 
thing that might be useful. Morse, with 
scanty funds and limited time, had to search 
for his materials and puzzle out the way to 

69 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

make each part for himself with such crude 
tools as he had available. Need we wonder 
that his progress was slow? Instead we should 
wonder that, despite all discouragements and 
handicaps, he clung to his great idea and 
labored on. 

But assistance was to come to him in this 
same eventful year of 1837, and that quite 
unexpectedly. On a Saturday in September 
a young man named Alfred Vail wandered 
into Professor Gale's laboratory. Morse was 
there engaged in exhibiting his model to an 
English professor then visiting in New York. 
The youth was deeply impressed with what he 
saw. He realized that here were possibilities 
of an instrument that would be of untold 
service to mankind. Asking Professor Morse 
whether he intended to experiment with a 
longer line, he was informed that such was 
his intention as soon as he could secure the 
means. Young Vail replied that he thought 
he could secure the money if Morse would ad- 
mit him as a partner. To this Morse assented. 

Vail plunged into the enterprise with all the 
enthusiasm of youth. That very evening he 

70 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

studied over the commercial possibilities, and 
before he retired had marked out on the maps 
in his atlas the routes for the most needed 
lines of communication. The young man ap- 
plied to his father for support. The senior 
Vail was the head of the Speedwell Iron Works 
at Morristown, New Jersey, and was a man 
of unusual enterprise and ability. He de- 
termined to back his son in the enterprise, 
and Morse was invited to come and exhibit 
his model. Two thousand dollars was needed 
to make the necessary instruments and secure 
the patents. On September 23, 1837, the 
agreement was drawn up by the terms of 
which Alfred Vail was, at his own expense, to 
construct apparatus suitable for exhibition to 
Congress and to secure a patent. In return 
he was to receive a one-fourth interest. Very 
shortly afterward they filed a caveat in the 
Patent Office, which is a notice serving to 
protect an impending invention. 

Alfred Vail immediately set to work on the 
apparatus, his only helper being a fifteen- 
year-old apprentice boy named William Bax- 
ter. The two worked early and late for many 

71 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

months in a secret room in the iron- works, 
being forced to fashion every part for them- 
selves. The first machine was a copy of 
Morse's model, but Vail's native ability as a 
mechanic and his own ingenuity enabled him 
to make many improvements. The pencil 
fastened to the armature which had marked 
zigzag lines on the moving paper was replaced 
by a fountain-pen which inscribed long and 
short lines, and thus the dashes and dots of 
the Morse code were put into their present 
form. Morse had worked out an elaborate 
telegraphic code or dictionary, but a simpler 
code by which combinations of dots and 
dashes were used to represent letters instead 
of numbers in a code was now devised. Vail 
recognized the importance of having the sim- 
plest combinations of dots and dashes stand 
for the most used letters, as this would in- 
crease the speed of sending. He began to 
figure out for himself the frequency with which 
the various letters occur in the English lan- 
guage. Then he thought of the combination 
of types in a type-case, and, going to a local 
newspaper office, found the result all worked 

72 




Photo by Claudy. 



MORSES FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT 



A pen was attached to the pendulum and drawn across the strip of paper by the 
action of the electro-magnet. The lead type shown in the lower right-hand corner was 
used in making electrical contact when sending a message. The modern instrument 
shown in the lower left-hand corner is the one that sent a message around the world 
in 1896. 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MORSE 

out for him. In each case of type such com- 
mon letters as e and t have many more types 
than little used letters such as q and z. 
By observing the number of types of each 
letter provided, Vail was enabled to arrange 
them in the order of their importance in as- 
signing them symbols in the code. Thus the 
Morse code was arranged as it stands to-day. 
Alfred Vail played a very important part in 
the arrangement of the code as well as in the 
construction of the apparatus, and there are 
many who believe that the code should have 
been called the Vail code instead of the Morse 
code. 

Morse came down to Speedwell when he 
could to assist Vail with the work, and yet it 
progressed slowly. But at last, early in 
January of 1838 they had the telegraph at 
work, and William Baxter, the apprentice boy, 
was sent to call the senior Vail. Within a few 
moments he was in the work-room studying 
the apparatus. Alfred Vail was at the send- 
ing key, and Morse was at the receiver. The 
father wrote on a piece of paper these words: 
"A patient waiter is no loser.' ' Handing it 

73 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

to his son, he stated that if he could transmit 
the message to Morse by the telegraph he 
would be convinced. The message was sent 
and recorded and instantly read by Morse. 
The first test had been completed successfully. 



VI 
"what hath god wrought?" 

Congress Becomes Interested — Washington to Baltimore Line 
Proposed — Failure to Secure Foreign Patents — Later In- 
difference of Congress — Lean Years — Success at Last — 
The Line is Built — The First Public Message — Popularity. 

MORSE and his associates now had a 
. telegraph which they were confident 
would prove a genuine success. But the 
great work of introducing this new wonder to 
the public, of overcoming indifference and 
skepticism, of securing financial support suffi- 
cient to erect a real line, still remained to be 
done. We shall see that this burden remained 
very largely upon Morse himself. Had Morse 
not been a forceful and able man of affairs 
as well as an inventor, the introduction of the 
telegraph might have been even longer de- 
layed. 

The new telegraph was exhibited in New 
York and Philadelphia without arousing popu- 

75 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

lar appreciation. It was viewed as a scientific 
toy; few saw in it practical possibilities. 
Morse then took it to Washington and set 
up his instruments in the room of the Com- 
mittee on Commerce of the House of Repre- 
sentatives in the Capitol. Here, as in earlier 
exhibitions, a majority of those who saw 
the apparatus in operation remained uncon- 
vinced of its ability to serve mankind. But 
Morse finally made a convert of the Hon. 
Francis O. J. Smith, chairman of the Com- 
mittee, on Commerce. Smith had previously 
been in correspondence with the inventor, 
and Morse had explained to him at length 
his belief that the Government should own 
the telegraph and control and operate it for 
the public good. He believed that the Gov- 
ernment should be sufficiently interested to 
provide funds for an experimental line a hun- 
dred miles long. In return he was willing to 
promise the Government the first rights to 
purchase the invention at a reasonable price. 
Later he changed his request to a line of fifty 
miles, and estimated the cost of erection at 

$26,000. 

76 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

Smith aided in educating the other mem- 
bers of his committee, and one day in Feb- 
ruary of 1838 he secured the attendance of 
the entire body at a test of the telegraph over 
ten miles of wire. The demonstration con- 
vinced them, and many were their expressions 
of wonder and amazement. One member 
remarked, "Time and space are now anni- 
hilated.* ' As a result the committee reported 
a bill appropriating $30,000 for the erection 
of an experimental line between Washington 
and Baltimore. Smith's report was most 
enthusiastic in his praise of the invention. 
In fact, the Congressman became so much 
interested that he sought a share in the enter- 
prise, and, securing it, resigned from Congress 
that he might devote his efforts to securing 
the passage of the bill and to acting as legal 
adviser. At this time the enterprise was 
divided into sixteen shares : Morse held nine ; 
Smith, four; Alfred Vail, two; and Professor 
Gale, one. We see that Morse was a good 
enough business man to retain the control. 

Wheatstone and others were developing 
their telegraphs in Europe, and Morse felt 

77 



f 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

that it was high time to endeavor to secure 
foreign patents on his invention. Accom- 
panied by Smith, he sailed for England in 
May, taking with him a new instrument pro- 
vided by Vail. Arriving in London, they 
made application for a patent. They were 
opposed by Wheatstone and his associates, 
and could not secure even a hearing from 
the patent authorities. Morse strenuously 
insisted that his telegraph was radically dif- 
ferent from Wheatstone's, laying especial em- 
phasis on the fact that his recording instru- 
ment printed the message in permanent 
form, while Wheatstone's did not. Morse 
always placed great emphasis on the recording 
features of his apparatus, yet these features 
were destined to be discarded in America 
when his telegraph at last came into use. 

With no recourse open to him but an appeal 
to Parliament, a long and expensive proceed- 
ing with little apparent possibility of suc- 
cess, Morse went to France, hoping for a more 
favorable reception. He found the French 
cordial and appreciative. French experts 
watched his tests and examined his apparatus, 

78 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

pronouncing his telegraph the best of all that 
had been devised. He received a patent, 
only to learn that to be effective the inven- 
tion must be put in operation in France within 
two years, under the French patent law. 
Morse sought to establish his line in connec- 
tion with a railway, as Wheatstone had estab- 
lished his in England, but was told that the 
telegraph must be a Government monopoly, 
and that no private parties could construct 
or operate. The Government would not act, 
and Morse found himself again defeated. 
Faring'no better with other European govern- 
ments, Morse decided to return to America 
to push the bill for an appropriation before 
Congress. 

While Morse was in Europe gaining pub- 
licity for the telegraph, but no patents, his 
former fellow-passenger on the Sully, Dr. 
Charles Jackson, had laid claim to a share in 
the invention. He insisted that the idea had 
been his and that he had given it to Morse 
on the trip across the Atlantic. This Morse 
indignantly denied. 

Congress would now take no action upon the 

6 79 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

invention. A heated political campaign was in 
progress, and no interest could be aroused in 
an invention, no matter what were its pos- 
sibilities in the advancement of the work and 
development of the nation. Smith was in 
politics, the Vails were suffering from a 
financial depression, Professor Gale was a 
man of very limited means, and so Morse 
found himself without funds or support. In 
Paris he had met M. Daguerre, who had just 
discovered photography. Morse had learned 
the process and, in connection with Doctor 
Draper, he fitted up a studio on the roof of 
the university. Here they took the first 
daguerreotypes made in America. 

Morse's work in art had been so much in- 
terrupted that he had but few pupils. The 
fees that these brought to him were small and 
irregular, and he was brought to the very 
verge of starvation. We are told of the call 
Morse made upon one pupil whose tuition 
was overdue because of a delay in the arrival 
of funds from his home. 

''Well, my boy," said the professor, "how 

are we off for money?' ' 

80 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

The student explained the situation, add- 
ing that he hoped to have the money the fol- 
lowing week. 

"Next week!" exclaimed Morse. "I shall 
be dead by next week — dead of starvation." 

" Would ten dollars be of any service?" 
asked the student, astonished and distressed. 

"Ten dollars would save my life," was 
Morse's reply. 

The student paid the money — all he had — 
and they dined together, Morse remarking 
that it was his first meal for twenty -four 
hours. 

Morse's situation and feelings at this time 

are also illustrated by a letter he wrote to 

Smith late in 1841. 

I find myself [he wrote] without sympathy or help 
from any who are associated with me, whose interests, 
one would think, would impell them to at least inquire 
if they could render me some assistance. For nearly 
two years past I have devoted all my time and scanty 
means, living on a mere pittance, denying myself all 
pleasures and even necessary food, that I might have 
a sum to put my telegraph into such a position before 
Congress as to insure success to the common enter- 
prise. I am crushed for want of means, and means of 
so trifling a character, too, that they who know how to 
ask (which I do not) could obtain in a few hours. . . . 

8! 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

As it is, although everything is favorable, although I 
have no competition and no opposition — on the con- 
trary, although every member of Congress, so far as I 
can learn, is favorable — yet I fear all will fail because 
I am too poor to risk the trifling expense which my jour- 
ney and residence in Washington will occasion me. 
I will not run in debt, if I lose the whole matter. No 
one can tell the days and months of anxiety and labor 
I have had in perfecting my telegraphic apparatus. 
For want of means I have been compelled to make with 
my own hands (and to labor for weeks) a piece of 
mechanism which could be made much better, and in 
a tenth the time, by a good mechanician, thus wasting 
time — time which I cannot recall and which seems 
double- winged to me. 

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." It is .true, 
and I have known the full meaning of it. Nothing 
but the consciousness that I have an invention which 
is to mark an era in human civilization, and which is to 
contribute to the happiness of millions, would have 
sustained me through so many and such lengthened 
trials of patience in perfecting it. 

A patent on the telegraph had been issued 
to Morse in 1840. The issuance had been de- 
layed at Morse's request, as he desired to 
first secure foreign patents, his own American 
rights being protected by the caveat he had 
filed. Although the commercial possibilities, 
and hence the money value of the telegraph 
had not been established, Morse was already 

82 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

troubled with the rival claims of those who 
sought to secure a share in his invention. 

While working and waiting and saving, 
Morse conceived the idea of laying telegraph 
wires beneath the water. He prepared a wire 
by wrapping it in hemp soaked in tar, and 
then covering the whole with rubber. Choos- 
ing a moonlight night in the fall of 1842, he 
submerged his cable in New York Harbor 
between Castle Garden and Governors Island. 
A few signals were transmitted and then the 
wire was carried away by a dragging anchor. 
Truly, misfortune seemed to dog Morse's 
footsteps. This seems to have been the first 
submarine cable, and in writing of it not long 
after Morse hazarded the then astonishing 
prediction that Europe and America would be 
linked by telegraphic cable. 

Failing to secure effective aid from his asso- 
ciates, Morse hung on grimly, fighting alone, 
and putting all of his strength and energy 
into the task of establishing an experimental 
line. It was during these years that he dem- 
onstrated his greatness to the full. His letters 
to the members of the Congressional Com- 

83 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

mittee on Commerce show marked ability. 
They outline the practical possibilities very 
clearly. Morse realized not only the financial 
possibilities of his invention, but its benefit 
to humanity as well. He also presented very 
practical estimates of the cost of establishing 
the line under consideration. The committee 
again recommended that $30,000 be appro- 
priated for the construction of a Washington- 
Baltimore line. The politicians had come 
to look upon Morse as a crank, and it was 
extremely difficult for his adherents to secure 
favorable action in the House. Many a 
Congressman compared Morse and his ex- 
periments to mesmerism and similar "isms," 
and insisted that if the Government gave 
funds for this experiment it would be called 
upon to supply funds for senseless trials of 
weird schemes. The bill finally passed the 
House by the narrow margin of six votes, 
the vote being taken orally because so many 
Congressmen feared to go on record as favor- 
ing an appropriation for such a purpose. 
I The bill had still to pass the Senate, and 
here there seemed little hope. Morse, who 

84 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

had come to Washington to press his plan, 
anxiously waited in the galleries. The bill 
came up for consideration late one evening 
just before the adjournment. A Senator who 
noticed Morse went up to him and said: 

" There is no use in your staying here. The 
Senate is not in sympathy with your project. 
I advise you to give it up, return home, and 
think no more about it." 

The inventor went back to his room, with 
how heavy a heart we may well imagine. 
He paid his board bill, and found himself 
with but thirty-seven cents in the world. 
After many moments of earnest prayer he 
retired. 

Early next morning there came to him Miss 
Annie Ellsworth, daughter of his friend the 
Commissioner of Patents, and said, " Profes- 
sor, I have come to congratulate you." 

"Congratulate me!" replied Morse. "On 
what?" 

"Why," she exclaimed, "on the passage 
of your bill by the Senate!" 

The bill had been passed without debate 
in the closing moments of the session. As 

85 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Morse afterward stated, this was the turning- 
point in the history of the telegraph. His re- 
sources were reduced to the minimum, and 
there was little likelihood that he would have 
again been able to bring the matter to the 
attention of Congress. 

So pleased was Morse over the news of the 
appropriation, and so grateful to Miss Ells- 
worth for her interest in bringing him the 
good news, that he promised her that she 
should send the first message when the line 
was complete. With the Government appro- 
priation at his disposal, Morse immediately 
set to work upon the Washington-Baltimore 
line. Professors Gale and Fisher served as his 
assistants, and Mr. Vail was in direct charge of 
the construction work. Another person active 
in the enterprise was Ezra Cornell, who was 
later to found Cornell University. Cornell 
had invented a machine for laying wires un- 
derground in a pipe. 

It was originally planned to place the wires 
underground, as this was thought necessary 
for their protection. After running the line 
§ome five miles out from Baltimore it was. 

§6 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

found that this method of installing the line 
was to be a failure. The insulation was not 
adequate, and the line could not be operated 
to the first relay station. A large portion of 
the $30,000 voted by Congress had been 
spent and the line was still far from comple- 
tion. Disaster seemed imminent. Smith 
lost all faith in the enterprise, demanded most 
of the remaining money under a contract he 
had taken to lay the line, and a quarrel broke 
out between him and Morse which further 
jeopardized the undertaking. 

Morse and such of his lieutenants as re- 
mained faithful in this hour of trial, after a 
long consultation, decided to string the wire 
on poles. The method of attaching the wire 
to the poles was yet to be determined. They 
finally decided to simply bore a hole through 
each pole near the top and push the wire 
through it. Stringing the wire in such fashion 
was no small task, but it was finally accom- 
plished. It was later found necessary to in- 
sulate the wire with bottle hecks where it 
passed through the poles. On May 23, 1844, 
the line was complete. Remembering his 

87 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

promise to Miss Ellsworth, Morse called upon 
her next morning to give him the first mes- 
sage. She chose, "What hath God wrought?" 
and early on the morning of the 24th Morse 
sat at the transmitter in the Supreme Court 
room in the Capitol and telegraphed these 
immortal words to Vail at Baltimore. The 
message was received without difficulty and 
repeated back to Morse at Washington. The 
magnetic telegraph was a reality. 

Still the general public remained uncon- 
vinced. As in the case of Wheatstone's needle 
telegraph a dramatic incident was needed to 
demonstrate the utility of this new servant. 
Fortunately for Morse, the telegraph's op- 
portunity came quickly. The Democratic 
national convention was in session at Balti- 
more. After an exciting struggle they dropped 
Van Buren, then President, and nominated 
James K. Polk. Silas Wright was named for 
the Vice-Presidency. At that time Mr. 
Wright was in Washington. Hearing of the 
nomination, Alfred Vail telegraphed it to 
Morse in Washington. Morse communicated 

with Wright, who stated that he could not 

88 



"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" 

accept the honor. The telegraph was ready 
to carry his message declining the nomination, 
and within a very few minutes Vail had pre- 
sented it to the convention at Baltimore, to 
the intense surprise of the delegates there 
assembled. They refused to believe that 
Wright had been communicated with, and 
sent a committee to Washington to see Wright 
and make inquiries. They found that the 
message was genuine, and the utility of the 
telegraph had been strikingly established. 



VII 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM 

The Magnetic Telegraph Company — The Western Union — 
Crossing the Continent — The Improvements of Alfred Vail 
— Honors Awarded to Morse — Duplex Telegraphy — Edi- 
son's Improvements. 

FOR some time the telegraph line between 
Washington and Baltimore remained on 
exhibition as a curiosity, no charge being 
made for demonstrating it. Congress made 
an appropriation to keep the line in opera- 
tion, Vail acting as operator at the Washing- 
ton end. On April i, 1845, the line was put 
in operation on a commercial basis, service 
being offered to the public at the rate of one 
cent for four characters. It was operated 
as a branch of the Post-office Department. 
On the 4th of April a visitor from Virginia 
came into the Washington office wishing to 
see a demonstration. Up to this time not a 
paid message had been sent. The visitor, 

90 



DEVELOPMENT 

having no permit from the Postmaster- 
General, was told that he could only see the 
telegraph in operation by sending a message. 
One cent being all the money he had other 
than twenty-dollar bills, he asked for one 
cent's worth. The Washington operator 
asked of Baltimore, "What time is it?" which 
in the code required but one character. The 
reply came, "One o'clock," another single 
character. Thus but two characters had been 
used, or one-half cent's worth of telegraphy. 
The visitor expressed himself as satisfied, and 
waived the "change." This penny was the ^Ji t» 
line's first earnings. 

Under the terms of the agreement by which 
Congress had made the appropriation for the 
experimental line, Morse was bound to give 
the Government the first right to purchase his 
invention. He accordingly offered it to the 
United States for the sum of $100,000. 
There followed a distressing example of official 
stupidity and lack of foresight. With the 
opportunity to own and control the nation's 
telegraph lines before it the Government de- 
clined the offer. This action was taken at 

91 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

the recommendation of the Hon. Cave John- 
son, then Postmaster-General, under whose 
direction the line had been operated. He 
had been a member of Congress at the time 
the original appropriation was voted, and had 
ridiculed the project. The nation was now so 
unfortunate as to have him as its Postmaster- 
General, and he reported "that the operation 
of the telegraph between Washington and 
Baltimore had not satisfied him that, under 
any rate of postage that could be adopted, its 
revenues could be made equal to its expendi- 
tures.' ' And yet the telegraph, here offered 
to the Government for $100,000, was devel- 
oped under private management until it paid 
a profit on a capitalization of $100,000,000. 

Morse seems to have had a really patriotic 
motive, as well as a desire for immediate 
return and the freedom from further worries, 
in his offer to the Government. He was great- 
ly disappointed at its refusal to purchase, a 
refusal that was destined to make Morse a 
wealthy man. Amos Kendall, who had been 
Postmaster-General under Jackson, was now 
acting as Morse's agent, and they decided 

92 



DEVELOPMENT 

to depend upon private capital. Plans were 
made for a line between New York and Phila- 
delphia, and to arouse interest and secure 
capital the apparatus was exhibited in New 
York City at a charge of twenty-five cents a 
head. The public refused to patronize in 
sufficient numbers to even pay expenses, and 
the entire exhibition was so shabby, and the 
exhibitors so poverty-stricken, that the sleek 
capitalists who came departed without in- 
vesting. Some of the exhibitors slept on chairs 
or on the floor in the bare room, and it is 
related that the man who was later to give 
his name and a share of his fortune to Cornell 
University was overjoyed at finding a quarter 
on the sidewalk, as it enabled him to buy a 
hearty breakfast. Though men of larger 
means refused to take shares, some in humbler 
circumstances could recognize the great idea 
and the wonderful vision which Morse had 
struggled so long to establish — a vision of a 
nation linked together by telegraphy. The 
Magnetic Telegraph Company was formed 
and work started on the line. 

In August of 1845 Morse sailed for Europe 

93 






MASTERS OF SPACE 

in an endeavor to enlist foreign capital. The 
investors of Europe proved no keener than 
those of America, and the inventor returned 
without funds, but imbued with increased 
patriotism. He had become convinced that 
the telegraph could and would succeed on 
American capital alone. In the next year a 
line was constructed from Philadelphia to 
Washington, thus extending the New York- 
Philadelphia line to the capital. Henry 
O'Reilly, of Rochester, New York, took an 
active part in this construction work and 
now took the contract to construct a line 
from Philadelphia to St. Louis. This line 
was finished by December of 1847. 

The path having been blazed, others sought 
to establish lines of their own without regard 
to Morse's patents. One of these was O'Reilly, 
who, on the completion of the line to St. 
Louis, began one to New Orleans, without au- 
thority from Morse or his company. O'Reilly 
called his telegraph "The People's Line," and 
when called to account in the courts insisted 
not only that his instruments were different 
from Morse's, and so no infringement of his 

94 



DEVELOPMENT 

patents, but also that the Morse system was 
a harmful monopoly and that "The People's 
Line" should be encouraged. It was further 
urged that Wheatstone in England and Stein- 
heil in -Germany had invented telegraphs 
before Morse, and that Professor Henry had 
invented the relay which made it possible to 
operate the telegraph over long distances. 
The suits resulted in a legal victory for 
Morse, and his patents were maintained. 

But still other rival companies built lines, 
using various forms of apparatus, and though 
the courts repeatedly upheld Morse's patent 
rights, the pirating was not effectively 
checked. The telegraph had come to be a 
necessity and the original company lacked the 
capital to construct lines with sufficient rapid- 
ity to meet the need. Within ten years after 
the first line had been put into operation the 
more thickly settled portions of the United 
States were served by scores of telegraph 
lines owned by a dozen different companies. 
Hardly any of these were making any money, 
though the service was poor and the rates 
were high. They were all operating on too 

7 95 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

small a scale and business uses of the tele- 
graph had not yet developed sufficiently. 

An amalgamation of the scattered, com- 
peting lines was needed, both to secure better 
service for the public and proper dividends 
for the investors. This amalgamation was 
effected by Mr. Hiram Sibley, who organized 
the Western Union in 1856. The plan was 
ridiculed at the time, some one stating that 
"The Western Union seems very like col- 
lecting all the paupers in the State and ar- 
ranging them into a union so as to make 
rich men of them." But these pauper com- 
panies did become rich once they were united 
under efficient management. 

The nation was just then stretching her- 
self across to the Pacific. The commercial 
importance of California was growing rapidly. 
By 1857 stage-coaches were crossing the 
plains and the pony -express riders were 
carrying the mail. The pioneers of the tele- 
graph felt that a line should span the conti- 
nent. This was then a tremendous under- 
taking, and when Mr. Sibley proposed that 

the Western Union should undertake the 

96 



DEVELOPMENT 

construction of such a line he was met with 
the strongest opposition. 'The explorations 
of Fremont were not far in the past, and the 
vast extent of country west of the Mississippi 
was regarded as a wilderness peopled with 
savages and almost impossible of develop- 
ment. But Sibley had faith ; he was possessed 
of Morse's vision and Morse's courage. The 
Western Union refusing to undertake the 
enterprise, he began it himself. The Govern- 
ment, realizing the military and administra- 
tive value of a telegraph line to California, 
subsidized the work. Additional funds were 
raised and a route selected was through Omaha 
and Salt Lake City to San Francisco. 

The undertaking proved less formidable 
than had been anticipated, for, instead of 
two years, less than five months were occu- 
pied in completing the line. Sibley's tact and 
ability did much to avoid opposition by the 
Indians. He made the red men his friends 
and impressed upon them the wonder of the 
telegraph. When the line was in operation 
between Fort Kearney and Fort Laramie he 
invited the chief of the Arapahoes at Fort 

97 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Kearney to communicate by telegraph with 
his friend the chief of the Sioux at Fort 
Laramie. The two chiefs exchanged tele- 
grams and were deeply impressed. They 
were told that the telegraph was the voice of 
the Manitou or Great Spirit. To convince 
them it was suggested that they meet half-way 
and compare their experiences. Though they 
were five hundred miles apart, they started 
out on horseback, and on meeting each other 
found that the line had carried their 
words truly. The story spread among the 
tribes, and so the telegraph line became al- 
most sacred to the Indians. They might 
raid the stations and kill the operators, but 
they seldom molested the wires. 

Among many ignorant peoples the estab- 
lishment of the telegraph has been attained 
with no small difficulty. The Chinese showed 
a dread of the telegraph, frequently breaking 
down the early lines because they believed 
that they would take away the good luck of 
their district. The Arabs, on the other hand, 
did not oppose the telegraph. This is partly 
because the name is one which they can 

98 



DEVELOPMENT 

understand, tel meaning wire to them, and 
araph, to know. Thus in Arabic tele-agraph 
means to know by wire. 

Just as the Indians of our own plains had 
difficulty in understanding the telegraph, so 
the primitive peoples in other parts of the 
world could scarce believe it possible. A 
story is told of the construction of an early 
line in British India. The natives inquired 
the purpose of the wire from the head man. 

"The wire is to carry messages to Calcutta," 
he replied. 

"But how can words run along a wire?" 
they asked. 

The head man puzzled for a moment. 

"If there were a dog," he replied, "with a 
tail long enough to reach from here to Cal- 
cutta, and you pinched his tail here, wouldn't 
he howl in Calcutta?" 

Once Sibley and the other American tele- 
graph pioneers had spanned the continent, 
they began plans for spanning the globe. 
Their idea was to unite America and Europe 
by a line stretched through British Columbia, 
Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, and Siberia. 

99 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Siberia had been connected with European 
Russia, and thus practically the entire line 
could be stretched on land, only short sub- 
marine cables being necessary. It was then 
seriously doubted that cables long enough 
to cross the Atlantic were practicable. The 
expedition started in 1865, a fleet of thirty 
vessels carrying the men and supplies. Tre- 
mendous difficulties had been overcome and 
a considerable part of the work accomplished 
when the successful completion of the Atlantic 
cable made the work useless. Nearly three 
million dollars had been expended by the 
Western Union in this attempt. Yet, despite 
this loss, its affairs were so generally successful 
and the need for the telegraph so real that it 
continued to thrive until it reached its present 
remarkable development. 

While the line-builders were busy stretching 
telegraph wires into almost every city and 
town in the nation, others were perfecting the 
apparatus. Alfred Vail was a leading figure 
in this work. Already he had played a large 
part in designing and constructing the appara- 
tus to carry out Morse's ideas, and he con- 

100 



DEVELOPMENT 

tinued to improve and perfect until prac- 
tically nothing remained of Morse's original 
apparatus. The original Morse transmitter 
had consisted of a porte-rule and movable 
type. This was cumbersome, and Vail sub- 
stituted a simple key to make and break the 
circuit. Vail had also constructed the appara- 
tus to emboss the message upon the moving 
strip of paper, but this he now improved 
upon. The receiving apparatus was simplified 
and the pen was replaced by a. disk smeared 
with ink which marked the dots and dashes 
upon the paper. 

As we have noticed, Morse took particular 
pride in the fact that the receiving apparatus 
in his telegraph was self-recording, and con- 
sidered this as one of the most important 
parts of his system. But when the telegraph 
began to come into commercial use the oper- 
ators at the receiving end noticed that they 
could read the messages from the long and 
short periods between the clicks of the re- 
ceiving mechanism. Thus they were taking 
the message by ear and the recording mechan- 
ism was superfluous. Rules and fines failed 

IOI 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

to break them of the habit, and Vail, recog- 
nizing the utility of the development, con- 
structed a receiver which had no recording 
device, but from which the messages were read 
by listening to the clicks as the armature 
struck against the frame in which it was set. 
Thus the telegraph returned in its elements 
to the form of Professor Henry's original bell 
telegraph. 

With his bell telegraph and his relay Henry 
had the elements of a successful system. 
He failed, however, to develop them prac- 
tically or to introduce them to the attention 
of the public. He was the man of science 
rather than the practical inventor. Alfred 
Vail, joining with Morse after the latter had 
conceived the telegraph, but before his appa- 
ratus was in practical form, was a tireless 
and invaluable mechanical assistant. His 
inventions of apparatus were of the utmost 
practical value, and he played a very large 
part in bringing the telegraph to a form 
where it could serve man effectively. After 
success had been won Morse did not extend 
to Vail the credit which it seems was his due, 

JOS 



DEVELOPMENT 

Yet, though Morse made free use of the 
ideas and assistance of others, he was richly 
deserving of a major portion of the fame and 
the rewards that came to him as inventor of 
the telegraph. Morse was the directing 
genius; he contributed the idea and the lead- 
ership, and bore the brunt of the burdens 
when all was most discouraging. 

Honors were heaped upon Morse both at 
home and abroad as his telegraph established 
itself in all parts of the world. Orders of 
knighthood, medals, and decorations were 
conferred upon him. Though he had failed 
to secure foreign patents, many of the foreign 
governments recognized the value of his in- 
vention, and France, Austria, Belgium, Neth- 
erlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and some 
smaller nations joined in paying him a testi- 
monial of four hundred thousand francs. It 
is to be noticed that Great Britain did not 
join in this testimonial, though Morse's sys- 
tem had been adopted there in preference to 
the one developed by Wheatstone. 

In 1 87 1 a statue of Morse was erected in 
Central Park, New York City. It was in the 

i°3 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

spring of the next year that another statue 
was unveiled, this time one of Benjamin 
Franklin, and Morse presided at the cere- 
monies. The venerable man received a tre- 
mendous ovation on this occasion, but the 
cold of the day proved too great a strain upon 
him. He contracted a cold which eventually 
resulted in his death on April 2, 1872. 

While extended consideration cannot be 
given here to the telegraphic inventions of 
Thomas A. Edison, no discussion of the tele- 
graph should close without at least some men- 
tion of his work in this field. Edison started 
his career as a telegrapher, and his first in- 
ventions were improvements in the telegraph. 
His more recent and more wonderful inven- 
tions have thrown his telegraphic inventions 
into the shadow. On the telegraph as in- 
vented by Morse but one message could be 
sent over a single wire at one time. It was 
later discovered that two messages could be 
sent over the single wire in opposite directions 
at the same time. This was called duplex 
telegraphy. Edison invented duplex teleg- 
raphy by which two messages could be sent 

104 



DEVELOPMENT 

over the same wire in the same direction at 
the same time. Later he succeeded in com- 
bining the two, which resulted in the quadru- 
plex, by which four messages may be sent over 
one wire at one time. Though Edison re- 
ceived comparatively little for this invention, 
its commercial value may be estimated from 
the statement by the president of the Western 
Union that it saved that company half a 
million dollars in a single year. Edison's 
quadruplex system was also adopted by the 
British lines. 

Before this he had perfected an automatic 
telegraph, work on which had been begun by 
George Little, an Englishman. Little could 
make the apparatus effective only over a 
short line and attained no very great speed. 
Edison improved the apparatus until it 
transmitted thirty-five hundred words a min- 
ute between New York and Philadelphia. 
Such is the perfection to which Morse's mar- 
vel has been brought in the hands of the most 
able of modern inventors. 



VIII 

TELEGRAPHING BENEATH THE SEA 

Early Efforts at Underwater Telegraphy— Cable Construction 
and Experimentation — The First Cables — The Atlantic 
Cable Projected — Cyrus W. Field Becomes Interested — 
Organizes Atlantic Telegraph Company — Professor Thomson 
as Scientific Adviser — His Early Life and Attainments. 

THE idea of laying telegraph wires be- 
neath the sea was discussed long before 
a practical telegraph for use on land had been 
attained. It is recorded that a Spaniard 
suggested submarine telegraphy in 1795. Ex- 
periments were conducted early in the nine- 
teenth century with various materials in an 
effort to find a covering for the wires which 
would be both a non-conductor of electricity 
and impervious to water. An employee of 
the East India Company made an effort to 
lay a cable across the river Hugh as early as 
1838. His method was to coat the wire with 
pitch inclose it in split rattan, and then 

106 



BENEATH THE SEA 

wrap the whole with tarred yarn. Wheatstone 
discussed a Calais-Dover cable in 1840, but it 
remained for Morse to actually lay an ex- 
perimental cable. We have already heard of 
his experiments in New York Harbor in 1842. 
His insulation was tarred hemp and India 
rubber. Wheatstone performed a similar 
experiment in the Bay of Swansea a few 
months later. 

Perhaps the first practical submarine cable 
was laid by Ezra Cornell, one of Morsel 
associates, in 1845. He laid twelve miles of 
cable in the Hudson River, connecting Fort 
Lee with New York City. The cable con- 
sisted of two cotton-covered wires inclosed 
in rubber, and the whole incased in a lead 
pipe. This cable was in use for several months 
until it was carried away by the ice in the 
winter of 1846. 

These early experimenters found the great- 
est difficulty in incasing their wires in rubber, 
practical methods of working that substance 
being then unknown. The discovery of gutta- 
percha by a Scotch surveyor of the East 

India Company in 1842, and the invention of 

107 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

a machine for applying it to a wire, by Dr. 
Werner Siemens, proved a great aid to the 
cable-makers. These gutta-percha-covered 
wires were used for underground telegraphy 
both in England and on the Continent. Tests 
were made with such a cable for submarine 
work off Dover in 1849, and, proving suc- 
cessful, the first cable across the English 
Channel was laid the next year by John 
Watkins Brett. The cable was weighted 
; with pieces of lead fastened on every hundred 
yards. A few incoherent signals were ex- 
changed and the communication ceased. A 
Boulogne fisherman had caught the new cable 
in his trawl, and, raising it, had cut a section 
away. This he had borne to port as a great 
treasure, believing the copper to be gold in 
some new form of deposit. This experience 
taught the need of greater protection for a 
cable, and the next year another was laid 
across the Channel, which was protected by 
hemp and wire wrappings. This proved suc- 
cessful. In 1852 England and Ireland were 
joined by cable, and the next year a cable was 

laid across the North Sea to Holland. The 

108 



\ 



BENEATH THE SEA 

success of these short cables might have 
promised success in an attempt to cross the 
Atlantic had not failures in the deep water of 
the Mediterranean made it seem an impos- 
sibility. 

We have noted that Morse suggested the 
possibility of uniting Europe and America by 
cable. The same thought had occurred to 
others, but the undertaking was so vast and 
the problems so little understood that for 
many years none were bold enough to under- 
take the project. A telegraph from New 
York to St. John's, Newfoundland, was 
planned, however, which was to lessen the 
time of communication between the continents. 
News brought by boats from England could 
be landed at St. John's and telegraphed to 
New York, thus saving two days. F. N. 
Gisborne secured the concession for such a 
line in 1852, and began the construction. 
Cables were required to connect Newfound- 
land with the continent, and to cross the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the rest of the line 
was to be strung through the forests. 

Before much had been accomplished, Gis- 
109 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

borne had run out of funds, and work was 
suspended. In 1854 Gisborne met Cyrus 
West Field, of New York, a retired merchant 
of means. Field became interested in Gis- 
borne's project, and as he examined the globe 
in his library the thought occurred to him that 
the line to St. John's was but a start on the 
way to England. The idea aroused his en- 
thusiasm, and he determined to embark upon 
the gigantic enterprise. He knew nothing of 
telegraph cables or of the sea-bottom, and so 
sought expert information on the subject. 

One important question was as to the con- 
dition of the sea-bottom on which the cable 
must rest. Lieutenant Berryman of the 
United States Navy had taken a series of 
soundings and stated that the sea -bottom 
between Newfoundland and Ireland was a 
comparatively level plateau covered with soft 
ooze, and at a depth of about two thousand 
fathoms. This seemed to the investigators 
to have been provided for the especial purpose 
of receiving a submarine cable, so admirably 
was it suited to this purpose. Morse was 
consulted, and assured Field that the project 

no 



BENEATH THE SEA 

was entirely feasible, and that a submarine 
cable once laid between the continents could 
be operated successfully. 

Field thereupon adopted the plans of Gis- 
borne as the first step in the larger under- 
taking. In 1855 an attempt was made to 
lay a cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
but a storm arose, and the cable had to be 
cut to save the ship from which it was being 
laid. Another attempt was made the following 
summer with better equipment, and the cable 
was successfully completed. Other parts of 
the line had been finished, the telegraph now 
stretched a thousand miles toward England, 
and New York was connected with St. John's. 

Desiring more detailed information of the 
ocean-bed along the proposed route, Field 
secured the assistance of the United States 
and British governments. Lieutenant Berry- 
man, U.S.N. , in the Arctic, and Lieutenant 
Dayman, R.N., in the Cyclops, made a careful 
survey. Their soundings revealed a ridge 
near the Irish coast, but the slope was grad- 
ual and the general conditions seemed espe- 
cially favorable. 

8 III 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

The preliminary work had been done by 
an American company with Field at the 
head and Morse as electrician. Now Field 
went to England to secure capital sufficient 
for the larger enterprise. With the assistance 
of Mr. J. W. Brett he organized the Atlantic 
Telegraph Company* Field himself supplying 
a quarter of the capital. Associated with 
Field and Brett in the leadership of the enter- 
prise was Charles Tiltson Bright, a young 
Englishman who became engineer for the 
new company. 

Besides the enormous engineering difficul- 
ties of producing a cable long enough and 
strong enough, and laying it at the bottom of 
the Atlantic, there were electrical problems in- 
volved far greater than Morse seems to have 
realized. It had been discovered that the 
passage of a current through a submarine 
cable is seriously retarded. The retarding of 
the current as it passes through the water is 
a difficulty that does not exist with the land 
telegraph stretched on poles. Faraday had 
demonstrated that this retarding was caused 
by induction between the electricity in the 

112 



BENEATH THE SEA 

wire and the water about the cable. The 
passage of the current through the wire in- 
duces currents in the water, and these moving 
in the opposite direction act as a drag on the 
passage of the message through the wire. 
What the effect of this phenomenon would 
be on a cable long enough to cross the Atlantic 
was a serious problem that required deep 
study by the company's engineers. It seemed 
entirely possible that the messages would 
move so slowly that the operation of the 
cable> once it was laid, would not pay. 

Faraday failed to give any definite infor- 
mation on the subject, but Professor William 
Thomson worked out the law of retardation 
accurately and furnished to the cable-builders 
the accurate information which was required. 
Doctor Whitehouse, electrician for the Atlantic 
Company, conducted some experiments of his 
own and questioned the accuracy of Thom- 
son's statements. Thomson maintained his 
position so ably, and proved himself so 
thoroughly a master of the subject that Field 
and his associates decided to enlist him in the 
enterprise. This addition to the forces was 

"3 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

one of the utmost importance. William 
Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, was 
probably the ablest scientist of his generation, 
and was destined to prove his great abilities 
in his early work with the Atlantic cable. 

William Thomson was born in. Belfast, 
Ireland, in 1824. His father was a teacher 
and took an especially keen interest in the 
affairs of his boys because their mother had 
died while William was very young. When 
William was eight years of age his father 
removed to Glasgow, Scotland, where he had 
secured the chair of mathematics in Glasgow 
University. His early education he secured 
from his father, and this training, coupled 
with his natural brilliancy, enabled him to 
develop genuine precocity. At the age of 
eight he attended his father's university lec- 
tures as a visitor, and it is reported that on 
one occasion he answered his father's questions 
when all of the class had failed. At the age 
of ten he entered the university, together 
with his brother James, who was but two 
years older. The brothers displayed a marked 
interest in science and invention, eagerly 

114 



BENEATH THE SEA 

pursued their studies in these branches, and 
performed many electrical experiments to- 
gether. 

James took the degrees B.A. and M.A. in 
successive years. Though William also passed 
the examinations, he did not take the degrees, 
because he had decided to go to Cambridge, 
and it was thought best that he take all his 
degrees from that great school. In writing 
to his older brother at this time, William was 
accustomed to sign himself "B.A.T.A.I.A.P.," 
which signified "B.A. to all intents and pur- 
poses.' ' After finishing their work at Glas- 
gow the boys traveled extensively on the 
Continent. 

At seventeen William entered St Peter's 
College, Cambridge University, taking courses 
in advanced mathematics and continuing to 
distinguish himself. He took an active part 
in the life of the university, making something 
of a record as an athlete, winning the silver 
sculls, and rowing on a 'varsity crew which 
took the measure of Oxford in the great 
annual boat-race. He also interested himself 
in literature and music, but his real passion 

"5 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

was science. Already he had written many- 
learned essays on mathematical electricity 
and was accomplishing valuable research 
work. On the completion of his work at 
Cambridge he secured a fellowship which 
brought him an income of a thousand dollars 
a year and enabled him to pursue his studies 
in Paris. 

When he was but twenty-two years of age 
he was made professor of natural philosophy 
at the University of Glasgow. Though young, 
he proved entirely successful, and was im- 
mensely popular with his students. At that 
time the university had no experimental 
laboratory, and Professor Thomson and his 
pupils performed their experiments in the 
professor's room and in an abandoned coal- 
cellar, slowly developing a laboratory for 
themselves. His development continued until, 
when at the age of thirty-three he was called 
upon to assist with the work of laying an 
Atlantic cable, he was possessed of scientific 
attainments which made him invaluable 
among the cable pioneers. 



IX 

THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

Making the Cable — The First Attempt at Laying — Another 
Effort Checked by Storm— The Cable Laid at Last- 
Messages Cross the Ocean — The Cable Fails — Professor 
Thomson's Inventions and Discoveries — Their Part in De- 
signing and Constructing an Improved Cable and Apparatus. 

FIELD and his business associates were 
extremely anxious that the cable be 
laid with all possible speed, and little time 
was allowed the engineers and electricians for 
experimentation. The work of building the 
cable was begun early in 1857 by two English 
firms. It consisted of seven copper wires 
covered with gutta-percha and wound with 
tarred hemp. Over this were wound heavy 
iron wires to give protection and added 
strength. The whole weighed about a ton to 
the mile, and was both strong and flexible. 
The distance from the west coast of Ireland 
to Newfoundland being 1,640 nautical miles, 

117 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

it was decided to supply 2,500 miles of cable, 
an extra length being, of course, necessary to 
allow for the inequalities at the bottom of 
the sea, and the possibility of accident. 

The British and American governments 
had already provided subsidies, and they now 
supplied war-ships for use in the work of 
laying the cable. The Agamemnon, one of the 
largest of England's war-ships, and the Ni- 
agara, giant of the United States Navy, 
were to do the actual work of cable-laying, 
the cable being divided between them. They 
were accompanied by the United States 
frigate Susquehanna and the British war-ships 
Leopard and Cyclops. In August of 1857 the 
fleet assembled on the Irish coast for the start, 
and the American sailors landed the end of 
the cable amid great ceremony. 

The work of cable-laying was begun by the 
Niagara, which steamed slowly away, ac- 
companied by the fleet. The great cable 
payed out smoothly as the Irish coast was 
left behind and the frigate increased her speed. 
The submarine hill with its dangerous slopes 
was safely passed, and it was felt that the 

118 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

greatest danger was past. The paying-out 
machinery seemed to be working perfectly. 
Telegraphic communication was constantly 
maintained with the shore end. For six days 
all went well and nearly four hundred miles 
of cable had been laid. 

With the cable dropping to the bottom 
two miles down it was found that it was 
flowing out at the rate of six miles an hour 
while the Niagara was steaming but four. It 
was evident that the cable was being wasted, 
and jto prevent its running out too fast at 
this great depth the brake controlling the 
flow of the cable was tightened. The stern 
of the vessel rising suddenly on a wave, the 
strain proved too great and the cable parted 
and was lost. Instant grief swept over the 
ship and squadron, for the heart of every one 
was in the great enterprise. It was felt that 
it would be useless to attempt to grapple the 
cable at this great depth, and there seemed 
nothing to do but abandon it and return. 

The loss of the cable and of a year's time — 
since another attempt could not be made 

until the next season — resulted in a total loss 

119 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

to the company of half a million dollars. 
Public realization of the magnitude of the 
task had been awakened by the failure of the 
first expedition and Field found it far from 
easy to raise additional capital. It was 
finally accomplished, however, and a new 
supply of cable was constructed. 

Professor Thomson had been studying the 
problems of submarine telegraphy with grow- 
ing enthusiasm, and had now arrived at the 
conclusion that the conductivity of the cable 
depended very largely upon the purity of the 
copper employed. He accordingly saw to it 
that in the construction of the new section 
all the wires were carefully tested and such 
as did not prove perfect were discarded. In 
the mean time the engineers were busy im- 
proving the paying-out machinery. They 
designed an automatic brake which would 
release the cable instantly upon the strain 
becoming too great. It was thus hoped to 
avoid a recurrence of the former accident. 
Chief-Engineer Bright also arranged a trial 
trip for the purpose of drilling the staff in 
their various duties. 

120 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

The same vessels were provided to lay the 
cable on the second attempt and the fleet 
sailed in June of 1858, this time without 
celebration or public ceremony. On this oc- 
casion the recommendation of Chief -Engineer 
Bright was followed, and it was arranged 
that the Niagara and Agamemnon should meet 
in mid-ocean, there splice the cable together 
and proceed in opposite directions, laying 
the cable simultaneously. On this expedition 
Professor Thomson was to assume the real 
scientific leadership, Professor Morse, though 
he retained his position with the company, 
taking no active part. 

The ships had not proceeded any great 
distance before they ran into a terrible gale. 
The Agamemnon had an especially difficult 
time of it, her great load of cable overbalancing 
the ship and threatening to break loose again 
and again and carry the great vessel and her 
precious cargo to the bottom. The storm 
continued for over a week, and when at last 
it had blown itself out the Agamemnon re- 
sembled a wreck and many of her crew had 

been seriously injured. But the cable had 

121 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

been saved and the expedition was enabled 
to proceed to the rendezvous. The Niagara, 
a larger ship, had weathered the storm with- 
out mishap. 

The splice was effected on Saturday, the 
26th, but before three miles had been laid 
the cable caught in the paying-out machinery 
on the Niagara and was broken off. Another 
splice was made that evening and the ships 
started again. The two vessels kept in com- 
munication with each other by telegraph as 
they proceeded, and anxious inquiries and 
many tests marked the progress of the work. 
When fifty miles were out, the cable parted 
again at some point between the vessels and 
they again sought the rendezvous in mid- 
Atlantic. Sufficient cable still remained and 
a third start was made. For a few days all 
went well and some four hundred miles of 
cable had been laid with success as the 
messages passing from ship to ship clearly 
demonstrated. Field, Thomson, and Bright 
began to believe that their great enterprise 
was to be crowned with success when the ca- 
ble broke again, this time about twenty feet 

122 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

astern of the Agamemnon. This time there 
was no apparent reason for the mishap, the 
cable having parted without warning when 
under no unusual strain. 

The vessels returned to Queenstown, and 
Field and Thomson went to London, where the 
directors of the company were assembled. 
Many were in favor of abandoning the enter- 
prise, selling the remaining cable for what it 
would bring, and saving as much of their 
investment as possible. But Field and Thom- 
son were not of the sort who are easily dis- 
couraged, and they managed to rouse fresh 
courage in their associates. Yet another at- 
tempt was decided upon, and with replenished 
stores the Agamemnon and Niagara once 
again proceeded to the rendezvous. 

The fourth start was made on the 29th 
of July. On several occasions as the work 
progressed communication failed, and Pro- 
fessor Thomson on the Agamemnon and the 
other electricians on the Niagara spent many 
anxious moments fearing that the line had 
again been severed. On each occasion, how- 
ever, the current resumed. It was after- 

123 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

ward determined that the difficulties were 
because of faulty batteries rather than leaks 
in the cable. On both ships bad spots were 
found in the cable as it was uncoiled and 
some quick work was necessary to repair them 
before they dropped into the sea, since it 
was practically impossible to stop the flow 
of the cable without breaking it. The Niagara 
had some narrow escapes from icebergs, and 
the Agamemnon had difficulties with ships 
which passed too close and a whale which 
swam close to the ship and grazed the precious 
cable. But this time there was no break and 
the ships approached their respective desti- 
nations with the cable still carrying messages 
between them. The Niagara reached the 
Newfoundland coast on August 4th, and early 
the next morning landed the cable in the 
cable-house at Trinity Bay. The Agamemnon 
reached the Irish coast but a few hours later, 
and her end of the cable was landed on the 
afternoon of the same day. 

The public, because of the repeated failures, 
had come to look upon the cable project as 

a sort of gigantic wild-goose chase. The news 

124 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

that a cable had at last been laid across the 
ocean was received with incredulity. Becom- 
ing convinced at last, there was great rejoicing 
in England and America. Queen Victoria 
sent to President Buchanan a congratulatory 
message in which she expressed the hope 
"that the electric cable which now connects 
Great Britain with the United States will 
prove an additional link between the two 
nations, whose friendship is founded upon 
their mutual interest and reciprocal esteem." 
The President responded in similar vein, and 
expressed the hope that the neutrality of the 
cable might be established. 

Honors were showered upon the leaders in 
the enterprise. Charles Bright, the chief 
engineer, was knighted, though he was then 
but twenty-six years of age. Banquet after 
banquet was held in England at which Bright 
and Thomson were the guests of honor. 
New York celebrated in similar fashion. A 
grand salute of one hundred guns was fired, 
the streets were decorated, and the city was 
illuminated at night. The festivities rose to 
the highest pitch in September with Field 

125 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

receiving the plaudits of all New York. 
Special services were held in Trinity Church, 
and a great celebration was held in Crystal 
Palace. The mayor presented to Field a 
golden casket, and the ceremony was followed 
by a torchlight parade. That very day the 
last message went over the wire. 

The shock to the public was tremendous. 
Many insisted that the cable had never been 
operated and that the entire affair was a 
hoax. This was quickly disproved. Aside 
from the messages between Queen and Presi- 
dent many news messages had gone over the 
cable and it had proved of great value to the 
British Government. The Indian mutiny 
had been in progress and regiments in Canada 
had received orders by mail to sail for India. 
News reached England that the mutiny was 
at an end, and the cable enabled the Govern- 
ment to countermand the orders, thus saving 
a quarter of a million dollars that would have 
been expended in transporting the troops. 

The engineers to whom the operations of 
the cable had been intrusted had decided 
that very high voltages were necessary to its 

126 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

successful operation. They had accordingly 
installed huge induction coils and sent currents 
of two thousand volts over the line. Even 
this voltage had failed to operate the Morse 
instruments, the drag by induction proving 
too great. The strain of this high voltage 
had a very serious effect upon the insulation. 
Abandoning the Morse instruments and the 
high voltage, recourse was then had to Profes- 
sor Thomson's instruments, which proved en- 
tirely effective with ordinary battery current. 

Because of the effect of induction the 
current is much delayed in traveling through 
a long submarine cable and arrives in waves. 
Professor Thomson devised his mirror gal- 
vanometer to meet this difficulty. This device 
consists of a large coil of very fine wire, in 
the center of which, in a small air-chamber, 
is a tiny mirror. Mounted on the back of the 
mirror are very small magnets. The mirror 
is suspended by a fiber of the finest silk. Thus 
the weakest of currents coming in over the 
wire serve to deflect the mirror, and a beam 
of light being directed upon the mirror and 
reflected by it upon a screen, the slightest 

9 127 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

movement of the mirror is made visible. If 
the mirror swings too far its action is deadened 
by compressing the air in the chamber. The 
instrument is one of the greatest delicacy. 
Such was the greatest contribution of Profes- 
sor Thomson to submarine telegraphy. With- 
out it the cable could not have been operated 
even for a short period. Had it been used 
from the first the line would not have been 
ruined and might have been used for a con- 
siderable period. 

Professor Thomson together with Engineer 
Bright made a careful investigation of the 
causes of failure. The professor pointed out 
that had the mirror galvanometer been used 
with a moderate current the cable could 
have been continued in successful operation. 
He continued to improve this apparatus and 
at the same time busied himself with a record- 
ing instrument to be used for cable work. 
Both Thomson and Bright had recommended 
a larger and stronger cable, and other failures 
in cable-laying in the Red Sea and elsewhere 
in the next few years bore out their conten- 
tions. But with each failure new experience 

128 



THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE 

was gained and methods were perfected. Pro- 
fessor Thomson continued his work with the 
utmost diligence and continued to add to the 
fund of scientific knowledge on the subject. 
So it was that he was prepared to take his 
place as scientific leader of the next great 
effort. 



X 

A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

Field Raises New Capital — The Great Eastern Secured and 
Equipped — Staff Organized with Professor Thomson as Scien- 
tific Director — Cable Parts and is Lost — Field Perseveres — 
The Cable Recovered — The Continents Linked at Last — 
A Commercial Success — Public Jubilation — Modern Cables. 

THE early 'sixties were trying years for 
the cable pioneers. It required all of 
Field's splendid genius and energy to keep 
the project alive. In the face of repeated 
failures, and doubt as to whether messages 
could be sent rapidly enough to make any 
cable a commercial success, it was extremely 
difficult to raise fresh capital. America con- 
tinued to evince interest in the cable, but 
with the Civil War in progress it was not easy 
to raise funds. But no discouragement could 
deter Field. Though he suffered severely 
from seasickness, he crossed the Atlantic 

130 



A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

sixty-four times in behalf of the great enter- 
prise which he had begun. 

It was necessary to raise three million dol- 
lars to provide a cable of the improved type 
decided upon and to install it properly. 
The English firm of Glass, Eliot & Company, 
which was to manufacture the cable, took a 
very large part of the stock. The new cable 
was designed in accordance with the principles 
enunciated by Professor Thomson. The con- 
ductor consisted of seven wires of pure 
copper, weighing three hundred pounds to 
the mile. This copper core was covered 
with Chatterton's compound, which served 
as water-proofing. This was surrounded by 
four layers of gutta-percha, cemented to- 
gether by the compound, and about this 
hemp was wound. The outer layer consisted 
of eighteen steel wires wound spirally, each 
being covered with a wrapping of hemp 
impregnated with a preservative solution. 
The new cable was twice as heavy as the old 
and more than twice as strong, a great ad- 
vance having been made in the methods of 
manufacturing steel wire. 

131 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

It was decided that the cable should be 
laid by one vessel, instead of endeavoring to 
work from two as in the past. Happily, a 
boat was available which was fitted to carry 
this enormous burden. This was the Great 
Eastern, a mammoth vessel far in advance 
of her time. This great ship of 22,500 tons 
had been completed in 1857, but had not 
proved a commercial success. The docks of 
that day were not adequate, the harbors 
were not deep enough, and the cargoes were 
insufficient. She had long lain idle when she 
was secured by the cable company and 
fitted out for the purpose of laying the cable, 
which was the first useful work which had 
been found for the great ship. The 2,300 
miles of heavy cable was coiled into the 
hull and paying-out machinery was installed 
upon the decks. Huge quantities of coal and 
other supplies were added. 

Capt. James Anderson of the Cunard Line 
was placed in command of the ship for the 
expedition, with Captain Moriarty, R.N., as 
navigating officer. Professor Thomson and 
Mr. C. F. Varley represented the Atlantic 

132 



A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

Telegraph Company as electricians and scien- 
tific advisers. Mr. Samuel Canning was en- 
gineer in charge for the contractors. Mr. 
Field was also on board. 

It was on July 23, 1865, that the expedition 
started from the Irish coast, where the eastern 
end of the cable had been landed. Less than 
a hundred miles of cable had been laid when 
the electricians discovered a fault in the 
cable. The Great Eastern was stopped, the 
course was retraced, and the cable picked 
up until the fault was reached. It was found 
that a piece of iron wire had in some way 
pierced the cable so that the insulation was 
ruined. This was repaired and the work of 
laying was again commenced. Five days 
later, when some seven hundred miles of 
cable had been laid, communicatio was 
again interrupted, and once again they turned 
back, laboriously lifting the heavy cable from 
the depths, searching for the break. Again 
a wire was found thrust through the cable, 
and this occasioned no little worry, as it was 
feared that this was being done maliciously. 

It was on August 2d that the next fault 
133 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

was discovered. Nearly two-thirds of the 
cable was now in place and the depth was 
here over one mile. Raising the cable was 
particularly difficult, and just at this juncture 
the Great Eastern's machinery broke down, 
leaving her without power and at the mercy 
of the waves. Subjected to an enormous 
strain, the precious cable parted and was 
lost. Despite the great depth, efforts were 
made to grapple the lost cable. Twice the 
cable was hooked, but on both occasions 
the rope parted and after days of tedious 
work the supply of rope was exhausted and it 
was necessary to return to England. Still 
another cable expedition had ended in failure. 
Field, the indomitable, began all over again, 
raising additional funds for a new start. The 
Great Eastern had proved entirely satisfactory, 
and it was hoped that with improvements in 
the grappling-gear the cable might be recov- 
ered. The old company gave way before a new 
organization known as the Anglo-American 
Telegraph Company. It was decided to lay 
an entirely new cable, and then to endeavor 
to complete the one partially laid in 1865. 

134 



A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

With no services other than private prayers 
at the station on the Irish shore, the Great 
Eastern steamed away for the new effort on 
July 13, 1866. This time the principal diffi- 
culties arose within the ship. Twice the 
cable became tangled in the tanks and it was 
necessary to stop the ship while the mass 
was straightened out. Most of the time the 
"coffee-mill," as the seamen called the paying- 
out machinery, ground steadily away and 
the cable sank into the sea. As the work 
progressed Field and Thomson, who had suf- 
fered so many failures in their great enter- 
prise, watched with increasing anxiety. They 
were almost afraid to hope that the good for- 
tune would continue. 

Just two weeks after the Irish coast had 
been left behind the Great Eastern approached 
Newfoundland just as the shadows of night 
were added to those of a thick fog. On the 
next morning, July 28th, she steamed into 
Trinity Bay, where flags were flying in the 
little town in honor of the great accomplish- 
ment. Amid salutes and cheers the cable 
was landed and communication between the 

135 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

continents was established. Almost the first 
news that came over the wire was that of 
the signing of the treaty of peace which ended 
the war between Prussia and Austria. 

Early in August the Great Eastern again 
steamed away to search for the cable broken 
the year before. Arriving on the spot, the 
grapples were thrown out and the tedious 
work of dragging the sea-bottom was begun. 
After many efforts the cable was finally 
secured and raised to the surface. A new 
section was spliced on and the ship again 
turned toward America. On September 7th 
the second cable was successfully landed, 
and two wires were now in operation between 
the continents. Thus was the great task 
doubly fulfilled. Once again there were 
public celebrations in England and America. 
Field received the deserved plaudits of his 
countrymen and Thomson was knighted in 
recognition of his achievements. 

The new cables proved a success and were 
kept in operation for many years. Thom- 
son^ mirror receiver had been improved un- 
til it displayed remarkable sensitiveness. 

136 



A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

Using the current from a battery placed in 
a lady's thimble, a message was sent across 
the Atlantic through one cable and back 
through the other. Professor Thomson was 
to give to submarine telegraphy an even more 
remarkable instrument. The mirror instru- 
ment did not give a permanent record of the 
messages. The problem of devising a means 
of recording the messages delicate enough so 
that it could be operated with rapidity by 
the faint currents coming over a long cable 
was extremely difficult. But Thomson solved 
it with his siphon recorder. In this a small 
coil is suspended between the poles of a large 
magnet, the coil being free to turn upon its 
axis. When the current from the cable 
passes through the coil it moves, and so varies 
the position of the ink-siphon which is 
attached to it. The friction of a pen on paper 
would have proved too great a drag on so 
delicate an instrument, and so a tiny jet of 
ink from the siphon was substituted. The 
ink is made to pass through the siphon with 
sufficient force to mark down the message by 
a delightfully ingenious method. Thomson 

137 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

simply arranged to electrify the ink, and it 
rushes through the tiny opening on to the paper 
just as lightning leaps from cloud to earth. 

Professor, now Sir, Thomson continued to 
take an active part in the work of designing 
and laying new cables. Not only did he 
contribute the apparatus and the scientific 
information which made cables possible, but 
he attained renown as a physicist and a 
scientist in many other fields. In 1892 he was 
given the title of Lord Kelvin, and it was by 
this name that he was known as the leading 
physicist of his day. He survived until 1907. 

To Cyrus W. Field must be assigned a 
very large share of the credit for the establish- 
ment of telegraphic communication between 
the continents. He gave his fortune and all 
of his tremendous energy and ability to the 
enterprise and kept it alive through failure 
after failure. He was a promoter of the 
highest type, the business man who recog- 
nized a great human need and a great oppor- 
tunity for service. Without his efforts the 
scientific discoveries of Thomson could scarce- 
ly have been put to practical use. 

138 



A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED 

The success of the first cable inspired others. 
In 1869 a cable from France to the United 
States was laid from the Great Eastern. In 
1875 the Direct United States Cable Company- 
laid another cable to England, which was 
followed by another cable to France. One 
cable after another was laid until there are 
now a score. This second great development 
in communication served to bring the two 
continents much closer together in business 
and in thought and has proved of untold 
benefit. 



XI 

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, THE YOUTH 

The Family's Interest in Speech Improvement — Early Life — 
Influence of Sir Charles Wheatstone — He Comes to America 
— Visible Speech and the Mohawks — The Boston School for 
Deaf Mutes — The Personality of Bell. 

THE men of the Bell family, for three 
generations, have interested themselves 
in human speech. The grandfather, the 
father, and the uncle of Alexander Graham 
Bell were all elocutionists of note. The 
grandfather achieved fame in London; the 
uncle, in Dublin; and the father, in Edin- 
burgh. The father applied himself particu- 
larly to devising means of instructing the deaf 
in speech. His book on Visible Speech ex- 
plained his method of instructing deaf mutes 
in speech by the aid of their sight, and of 
teaching them to understand the speech of 
others by watching their lips as the words 

are spoken, 

140 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edin- 
burgh in 1847, and received his early educa- 
tion in the schools of that city. He later 
studied at Warzburg, Germany, where he re- 
ceived the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
He followed very naturally in the footsteps of 
his father, taking an early interest in the study 
of speech. He was especially anxious to 
aid his mother; who was deaf. 

As a boy he exhibited a genius for invention, 
as well as for acoustics. Much of this was 
due to the wise encouragement of his father. 
He himself has told of a boyhood invention. 

My father once asked my brother Melville and 
myself to try to make a speaking-machine. I don't 
suppose he thought we could produce anything of 
value, in itself. But he knew we could not even experi- 
ment and manufacture anything which even tried to 
speak, without learning something of the voice and 
the throat and the mouth — all that wonderful mechan- 
ism of sound production in which he was so interested. 

So my brother and I went to work. We divided the 
task — he was to make the lungs and the vocal cords, 
I was to make the mouth and the tongue. He made a 
bellows for the lungs and a very good vocal apparatus 
out of rubber. I procured a skull and molded a 
tongue with rubber stuffed with cotton wool, and sup- 
plied the soft parts of the throat with the same material. 
Then I arranged joints, so the jaw and the tongue 

141 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

could move. It was a great day for us when we fitted 
the two parts of the device together. Did it speak? 
It squeaked and squawked a good deal, but it made a 
very passable imitation of "Mam-ma — Mam-ma." It 
sounded very much like a baby. My father wanted 
us to go on and try to get other sounds, but we were 
so interested in what we had done we wanted to try it 
out. So we proceeded to use it to make people think 
there was a baby in the house, and when we made it 
cry "Mam-ma," and heard doors opening and people 
coming, we were quite happy. What has become of 
it? Well, that was across the ocean, in Scotland, but 
I believe the mouth and tongue part that I made is in 
Georgetown somewhere; I saw it not long ago. 

The inventor tells of another boyhood inven- 
tion that, though it had no connection with 
sound or speech, shows his native ingenuity. 
Again we will tell it in his own words. 

I remember my first invention very well. There 
were several of us boys, and we were fond of playing 
around a mill where they ground wheat into flour. 
The miller's son was one of the boys, and I am afraid 
he showed us how to be a good deal of a nuisance to 
his father. One day the miller called us into the mill 
and said, "Why don't you do something useful instead 
of just playing all the time?" I wasn't afraid of the 
miller as much as his son was, so I said, "Well, what 
can we do that is useful?" He took up a handful of 
wheat, ran it over in his hand and said: " Look at that! 
If you could manage to get the husks off that wheat, 
that would be doing something useful!" 

142 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 

So I took some wheat home with me and experi- 
mented. I found the husks came off without much 
difficulty. I tried brushing them off and they came off 
beautifully. Then it occurred to me that brushing was 
nothing but applying friction to them. If I could brush 
the husks off, why couldn't the husks be rubbed off? 

There was in the mill a machine — I don't know what 
it was for — but it whirled its contents, whatever it was, 
around in a drum. I thought, "Why wouldn't the 
husks come off if the raw wheat was whirled around in 
that drum ? " So back I went to the miller and suggested 
the idea to him. 

"Why," he said, "that's a good idea." So he called 
his foreman and they tried it, and the husks came off 
beautifully, and they've been taking husks off that way 
ever since. That was my very first invention, and it 
led me to thinking for myself, and really had quite 
an influence on my way and methods of thought. 

Up to his sixteenth year young Bell's read- 
ing consisted largely of novels, poetry, and 
romantic tales of Scotch heroes. But in 
addition he was picking up some knowledge 
of anatomy, music, electricity, and telegraphy. 
When he was but sixteen years of age his 
father secured for him a position as teacher of 
elocution and this necessarily turned his 
thought into more serious channels. He now 
spent his leisure studying sound. During 
this period he made several discoveries in 

10 143 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

sound which were of some small impor- 
tance. 

When he was twenty-one years of age he 
went to London and there had the good 
fortune to come to the attention of Charles 
Wheatstone and Alex J. Ellis. Ellis was at 
that time president of the London Philolog- 
ical Society, and had translated Helmholtz's 
The Sensation of Tone into English. He had 
made no little progress with sound, and 
demonstrated to Bell the methods by which 
German scientists had caused tuning-forks 
to vibrate by means of electro-magnets and 
had combined the tones of several tuning- 
forks in an effort to reproduce the sound of 
the human voice. Helmholtz had performed 
this experiment simply to demonstrate the 
physical basis of sound, and seems to have 
had no idea of its possible use in telephony. 

That an electro-magnet could vibrate a 
tuning-fork and so produce sound was an 
entirely new and fascinating idea to the 
youth. It appealed to his imagination, 
quickened by his knowledge of speech. ** Why 
not an electrical telegraph?" he asked him- 

144 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 

self. His idea seems to have been that the 
electric current could carry different notes 
over the wire and reproduce them by means 
of the electro-magnet. Although Bell did 
not know it, many others were struggling 
with the same problem, the answer to which 
proved most elusive. It gave Bell a starting- 
point, and the search for the telephone began. 
Sir Charles Wheatstone was then Eng- 
land's leading man of science, and so Bell 
sought his counsel. Wheatstone received the 
young man and listened to his statement of 
his ideas and ambitions and gave him every 
encouragement. He showed him a talking- 
machine which had recently been invented 
by Baron de Kempelin, and gave him the 
opportunity to study it closely. Thus Bell, 
the eager student, the unknown youth of 
twenty-two, came under the influence of 
Wheatstone, the famous scientist and inventor 
of sixty-seven. This influence played a great 
part in shaping Bell's career, arousing as it 
did his passion for science. This decided him 
to devote himself to the problem of repro- 
ducing sounds by mechanical means. Thus 

us 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

a new improvement in the means of human 
communication was being sought and an- 
other pioneer of science was at work. 

The death of the two brothers of the young 
scientist from tuberculosis, and the physi- 
cian's report that he himself was threatened 
by the dread malady, forced a change in his 
plans and withdrew him from an atmosphere 
which was so favorable to the development 
of his great ideas. He was told that he must 
seek a new climate and lead a more vigorous 
life in the open. Accompanied by his father, 
he removed to America and at the age of 
twenty-six took up the struggle for health in 
the little Canadian town of Brantford. 

He occupied himself by teaching his father's 

system of visible speech among the Mohawk 

Indians. In this work he met with no little 

success. At the same time he was gaining 

in bodily vigor and throwing off the tendency 

to consumption which had threatened his 

life. He did not forget the great idea which 

filled his imagination and eagerly sought the 

telephone with such crude means as were at 

hand. He succeeded in designing a piano 

146 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 

which, with the aid of the electric current, 
could transmit its music over a wire and 
reproduce it. 

While lecturing in Boston on his system of 
teaching visible speech, the elder Bell re- 
ceived a request to locate in that city and 
take up his work in its schools. He declined 
the offer, but recommended his son as one 
entirely competent for the position. Alex- 
ander Graham Bell received the offer, which 
he accepted, and he was soon at work teach- 
ing the deaf mutes in the school which Boston 
had opened for those thus afflicted. He met 
with the greatest success in his work, and ere 
long achieved a national reputation. During 
the first year of his work, 1871, he was the 
sensation of the educational world. Boston 
University offered him a professorship, in 
which position he taught others his system of 
teaching, with increased success. 

The demand for his services led him to open 
a School of Vocal Physiology. He had made 
some improvements in his father's system for 
teaching the deaf and dumb to speak and 
to understand spoken words, and displayed 

147 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

great ability as a teacher. His experiments 
with telegraphy and telephony had been laid 
aside, and there seemed little chance that he 
would turn from the work in which he was 
accomplishing so much for so many sufferers, 
and which was bringing a comfortable finan- 
cial return, and again undertake the tedious 
work in search for a telephone. 

Fortunately, Bell was to establish close 
relationships with those who understood and 
appreciated his abilities and gave him en- 
couragement in his search for a new means of 
communication. Thomas Sanders, a resident 
of Salem, had a five-year-old son named 
Georgie who was a deaf mute. Mr. Sanders 
sought Bell's tutelage for his son, and it was 
agreed that Bell should give Georgie private 
lessons for the sum of three hundred and fifty 
dollars a year. It was also arranged that 
Bell was to reside at the Sanders home in 
Salem. He made arrangements to conduct 
his future experiments there. 

Another pupil who came to him about this 
time was Mabel Hubbard, a fifteen-year-old 

girl who had lost her hearing and conse- 

148 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 

quently her powers of speech, through an 
attack of scarlet fever when an infant. She 
was a gentle and lovable girl, and Bell fell 
completely in love with his pupil. Four years 
later he was to marry her and she was to 
prove a large influence in helping him to 
success. She took the liveliest interest in all 
of his experiments and encouraged him to 
new endeavor after each failure. She kept 
his records and notes and wrote his letters. 
Through her Bell secured the support of her 
father, Gardiner G. Hubbard, who was widely 
known as one of Boston's ablest lawyers. He 
was destined to become Bell's chief spokesman 
and defender. 

Hubbard first became aware of Bell's in- 
ventive genius when the latter was calling 
one evening at the Hubbard home in Cam- 
bridge. Bell was illustrating some mysteries 
of acoustics with the aid of the piano. "Do 
you know," he remarked, "that if I sing the 
note G close to the strings of the piano, the 
G string will answer me?" 

This did not impress the lawyer, who asked 
its significance. 

149 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

"It is a fact of tremendous importance/ ' 
answered Bell. "It is evidence that we may 
some day have a musical telegraph which 
will enable us to send as many messages 
simultaneously over one wire as there are 
notes on that piano." 

From that time forward Hubbard took 
every occasion to encourage Bell to carry 
forward his experiments in musical telegraphy. 

As a young man Bell was tall and slender, 
with jet-black eyes and hair, the latter being 
pushed back into a curly tangle. He was 
sensitive and high-strung, very much the 
artist and the man of science. His enthusi- 
asms were intense, and, once his mind was 
filled with an idea, he followed it devotedly. 
He was very little the practical business man 
and paid scant attention to the small, prac- 
tical details of life. He was so interested in 
visible speech, and so keenly alert to the 
pathos of the lives of the deaf mutes, that 
he many times seriously considered giving 
over all experiments with the musical tele- 
graph and devoting his entire life and energies 
to the amelioration of their condition. 

150 



XII 

THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

The Cellar at Sanderses' — Experimental Beginnings — Magic Re- 
vived in Salem Town — The Dead Man's Ear — The Right 
Path — Trouble and Discouragement — The Trip to Wash- 
ington — Professor Joseph Henry — The Boston Workshop — 
The First Faint Twang of the Telephone — Early Devel- 
opment. 

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL had not 
. resided at the Sanderses* home very long 
before he had fitted the basement up as a 
workshop. For three years he haunted it, 
spending all of his leisure time in his experi- 
ments. Here he had his apparatus, and the 
basement was littered with a curious combi- 
nation of electrical and acoustical devices — 
magnets, batteries, coils of wire, tuning-forks, 
speaking-trumpets, etc. Bell had a great 
horror that his ideas might be stolen and 
was very nervous over any possible intrusion 
into his precious workshop. Only the mem- 
bers of the Sanders family were allowed to 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

enter the basement. He was equally cautious 
in purchasing supplies and equipment lest his 
very purchases reveal the nature of his ex- 
periments. He would go to a half-dozen dif- 
ferent stores for as many articles. He usually 
selected the night for his experiments, and 
pounded and scraped away indefatigably, ob- 
livious of the fact that the family, as well as 
himself, was sorely in need of rest. 

" Bell would often awaken me in the middle 
of the night," says Mr. Sanders, "his black 
eyes blazing with excitement. Leaving me 
to go down to the cellar, he would rush wildly 
to the barn and begin to send me signals 
along his experimental wires. If I noticed 
any improvement in his apparatus he would 
be delighted. He would leap and whirl 
around in one of his 'war-dances/ and then 
go contentedly to bed. But if the experi- 
ment was a failure he would go back to his 
work-bench to try some different plan." 

In common with other experimenters who 
were searching for the telephone, Bell was 
experimenting with a sort of musical tele- 
graph. Eagerly and persistently he sought 

152 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

the means that would replace the telegraph 
with its cumbersome signals by a new device 
which would enable the human voice itself 
to be transmitted. The longer he worked 
the greater did the difficulties appear. His 
work with the deaf and dumb was alluring, 
and on many occasions he seriously consid- 
ered giving over his other experiments and 
devoting himself entirely to the instruction 
of the deaf and dumb and to the development 
of his system of making speech visible by 
making the sound -vibrations visible to the 
eye. But as he mused over the difficulties 
in enabling a deaf mute to achieve speech 
nothing else seemed impossible. "If I can 
make a deaf mute talk," said Bell, "I can 
make iron talk." 

One of his early ideas was to install a 
harp at one end of the wire and a speaking- 
trumpet at the other. His plan was to trans- 
mit the vibrations over the wire and have 
the voice reproduced by the vibrations of 
the strings of the harp. By attaching a light 
pencil or marker to a cord or membrane and 
causing the latter to vibrate by talking against 

153 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

it, he could secure tracings of the sound- 
vibrations. Different tracings were secured 
from different sounds. He thus sought to 
teach the deaf to speak by sight. 

At this time Bell enjoyed the friendship 
of Dr. Clarence J. Blake, an eminent Boston 
aurist, who suggested that the experiments 
be conducted with a human ear instead of 
with a mechanical apparatus in imitation of 
the ear. Bell eagerly accepted the idea, and 
Doctor Blake provided him with an ear and 
connecting organs cut from a dead man's 
head. Bell soon had the ghastly specimen 
set up in his workshop. He moistened the 
drum with glycerine and water and, substi- 
tuting a stylus of hay for the stapes bone, 
he obtained a wonderful series of curves 
which showed the vibrations of the human 
voice as recorded by the ear. One can scarce 
imagine a stranger picture than Bell must 
have presented in the conduct of these 
experiments. We can almost see him with his 
face the paler in contrast with his black hair 
and flashing black eyes as he shouted and 
whispered by turns into the ghastly ear. 

154 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

Surely he must have looked the madman, and 
it is perhaps fortunate that he was not 
observed by impressionable members of the 
public else they would have been convinced 
that the witches had again visited old Salem 
town to ply their magic anew. But it was a 
new and very real and practical sort of magic 
which was being worked there. 

His experiments with the dead man's ear 
brought to Bell at least one important idea. 
He noted that, though the ear-drum was thin 
and light, it was capable of sending vibrations 
through the heavy bones that lay back of it. 
And so he thought of using iron disks or 
membranes to serve the purpose of the drum 
in the ear and arrange them so that they 
would vibrate an iron rod. He thought of 
connecting two such instruments with an 
electrified wire, one of which would receive 
the sound- vibrations and the other of which 
would reproduce them after they had been 
transmitted along the wire. At last the ex- 
perimenter was on the right track, with a 
conception of a practicable method of trans- 
mitting sound. He now possessed a theo- 

i55 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

retical knowledge of what the telephone he 
sought should be, but there yet remained 
before him the enormous task of devising and 
constructing the apparatus which would carry 
out the idea, and find the best way of utilizing 
the electrical current for this work. 

Bell was now at a critical point in his 
career and was confronted by the same diffi- 
culty which assails so many inventors. In 
his constant efforts to achieve a telephone 
he had entirely neglected his school of vocal 
physiology, which was now abandoned. 
Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard were his 
only pupils. Though Sanders and Hubbard 
were genuinely interested in Bell and his 
work, they felt that he was impractical, and 
were especially convinced that his experi- 
ments with the ear and its imitations were 
entirely useless. They believed that the elec- 
trical telegraph alone presented possibilities, 
and they told Bell that unless he would devote 
himself entirely to the improvement of this 
instrument and cease wasting time and money 
over ear toys that had no commercial value 
they would no longer give him financial 

156 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

support. Hubbard went even further, and 
insisted that if Bell did not abandon his fool- 
ish notions he could not marry his daughter. 

Bell was almost without funds, his closest 
friends now seemed to turn upon him, and 
altogether he was in a sorry plight. Of 
course Sanders and Hubbard meant the best, 
yet in reality they were seeking to drive their 
protege in exactly the wrong direction. As 
far back as i860 a German scientist named 
Philipp Reis produced a musical telephone 
that even transmitted a few imperfect words. 
But it would not talk successfully. Others 
had followed in his footsteps, using the mu- 
sical telephone to transmit messages with the 
Morse code by means of long and short hums. 
Elisha Gray, of Chicago, also experimented 
with the musical telegraph. At the trans- 
mitting end a vibrating steel tongue served 
to interrupt the electric current which passed 
over the wire in waves, and, passing through 
the coils of an electro-magnet at the receiving 
end, caused another strip of steel located 
near the magnet to vibrate and so produce a 
tone which varied with the current. 

iS7 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

All of these developments depended upon 
the interruption of the current by some kind 
of a vibrating contact. The limitations which 
Sanders and Hubbard sought to impose upon 
Bell, had they been obeyed to the letter, 
must have prevented his ultimate success. 
In a letter to his mother at this time, he said : 

I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties 
of being an inventor. I have had to put off all pupils 
and classes, for flesh and blood could not stand much 
longer such a strain as I have had upon me. 

But good fortune was destined to come 
to Bell along with the bad. On an enforced 
trip to Washington to consult his patent 
attorney — a trip he could scarce raise funds 
to make — Bell met Prof. Joseph Henry. We 
have seen the part which this eminent scien- 
tist had played in the development of the 
telegraph. Now he was destined to aid Bell, 
as he had aided Morse a generation earlier. 
The two men spent a day over the apparatus 
which Bell had with him. Though Professor 
Henry was fifty years his senior and the leading 
scientist in America, the youth was able to 
demonstrate that he had made a real discovery. 

158 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

"You are in possession of the germ of a 
great invention," said Henry, "and I would 
advise you to work at it until you have made 
it complete/ ' 

"But," replied Bell, "I have not got the 
electrical knowledge that is necessary.' ' 

"Get it," was Henry's reply. 

This proved just the stimulus Bell needed, 
and he returned to Boston with a new de- 
termination to perfect his great idea. 

Bell was no longer experimenting in the 
Sanderses' cellar, having rented a room in 
Boston in which to carry on his work. He 
had also secured the services of an assistant, 
one Thomas Watson, who received nine dollars 
a week for his services in Bell's behalf. The 
funds for this work were supplied by Sanders 
and Hubbard jointly, but they insisted that 
Bell should continue his experiments with the 
musical telegraph. Though he was convinced 
that the opportunities lay in the field of 
telephony, Bell labored faithfully for regular 
periods with the devices in which his patrons 
were interested. The remainder of his time 
and energy he put upon the telephone. The 

» iS9 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

basis of his telephone was still the disk or 
diaphragm which would vibrate when the 
sound-waves of the voice were thrown against 
it. Behind this were mounted various kinds 
of electro-magnets in series with the electrified 
wire over which the inventor hoped to send 
his messages. For three years they labored 
with this apparatus, trying every conceivable 
sort of disk. It is easy to pass over those 
three years, filled as they were with unceasing 
toil and patient effort, because they were drab 
years when little of interest occurred. But 
these were the years when Bell and Watson 
were "going to school," learning how to apply 
electricity to this new use, striving to make 
their apparatus talk. How dreary and trying 
these years must have been for the experi- 
menters we may well imagine. It requires 
no slight force of will to hold oneself to 
such a task in the face of failure after 
failure. 

By June of 1875 Bell had completed a new 
instrument. In this the diaphragm was a 
piece of gold-beater's skin, which Bell had 
selected as most closely resembling the drum 

160 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

in the human ear. This was stretched tight 
to form a sort of drum, and an armature of 
magnetized iron was fastened to its middle. 
Thus the bit of iron was free to vibrate, and 
opposite it was an electro-magnet through 
which flowed the current that passed over the 
line. This acted as the receiver. At the 
other end of the wire was a sort of crude 
harmonica with a clock spring, reed, and mag- 
net. Bell and Watson had been working 
upon their crude apparatus for months, and 
finally, on June 2d, sounds were actually 
transmitted. Bell was afire with enthusiasm; 
the first great step had been taken. The 
electric current had carried sound-vibrations 
along the wire and had reproduced them. 
If this could be done a telephone which 
would reproduce whole words and sentences 
could be attained. 

So great was Bell's enthusiasm over this 
achievement that he succeeded in convincing 
Sanders and Hubbard that his idea was 
practical, and they at last agreed to finance 
him in his further experiments with the tele- 
phone. A second membrane receiver was 

161 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

constructed, and for many more weeks the 
experiments continued. It was found that 
sounds were carried from instrument to in- 
strument, but as a telephone they were still 
far from perfection. It was not until March 
of 1876 that Bell, speaking into the instru- 
ment in the workroom, was heard and under- 
stood by Watson at the other instrument in 
the basement. The telephone had carried and 
delivered an intelligible message. 

The telephone which Bell had invented, and 
on which he received a patent on his twenty- 
ninth birthday, consisted of two instruments 
similar in principle to what we would now 
call receivers. If you will experiment with 
the receiver of a modern telephone you will 
find that it will transmit as well as receive 
sound. The heart of the transmitter was an 
electro-magnet in front of which was a drum- 
like membrane with a piece of iron cemented 
to its center opposite the magnet. A mouth- 
piece was arranged to throw the sounds of 
the voice against the diaphragm, and as the 
membrane vibrated the bit of iron upon it — 

acting as an armature — induced currents cor- 

162 



BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE 

responding to the sound-waves, in the coils 
of the electro-magnet. 

Passing over the line the current entered 
the coils of the tubular electro-magnet in the 
receiver. A thin disk of soft iron was fastened 
at the end of this. When the current-waves 
passed through the coils of the magnet the 
iron disk was thrown into vibration, thus 
producing sound. As it vibrated with the 
current produced by the iron on the vibrating 
membrane in the transmitter acting as an 
armature, transmitter and receiver vibrated 
in unison and so the same sound was given 
off by the receiver and made audible to the 
human ear as was thrown against the mem- 
brane of the transmitter by the voice. 

The patent issued to Bell has been de- 
scribed as "the most valuable single patent 
ever issued." Certainly it was destined to be 
of tremendous service to civilization. It was 
so entirely new and original that Bell found 
difficulty in finding terms in which to de- 
scribe his invention to the patent officials. 
He called it "an improvement on the tele- 
graph," in order that it might be identified 

163 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

as an improvement in transmitting intelli- 
gence by electricity. In reality the telephone 
was very far from being a telegraph or any- 
thing in the nature of a telegraph. 

As Bell himself stated, his success was in 
large part due to the fact that he had ap- 
proached the problem from the viewpoint of 
an expert in sound rather than as an elec- 
trician. "Had I known more about electricity 
and less about sound, " he said, "I would 
never have invented the telephone." As we 
have seen, those electricians who worked 
from the viewpoint of the telegraph never got 
beyond the limitations of the instrument and 
found that with it they could transmit signals 
but not sounds. Bell, with his knowledge of 
the laws of speech and sound, started with 
the principles of the transmission of sound as 
a basis and set electricity to carrying the 
sound-vibrations. 



XIII 

THE TELEPHONE AT THE CENTENNIAL 

Bell's Impromptu Trip to the Exposition — The Table Under the 
Stairs — Indifference of the Judges — Enter Don Pedro, Em- 
peror of Brazil — Attention and Amazement — Skepticism of 
the Public — The Aid of Gardiner Hubbard — Publicity- 
Campaign. 

THE Philadelphia Centennial Exposition — 
America's first great exposition — opened 
within a month after the completion of the 
first telephone. The public knew nothing of 
the telephone, and before it could be made a 
commercial success and placed in general ser- 
vice the interest of investors and possible 
users had to be aroused. The Centennial 
seemed to offer an unusual opportunity to 
place the telephone before the public. But 
Bell, like Morse, had no money with which 
to push his invention. Hubbard was one of 
the commissioners of the exposition, and ex- 
erted his influence sufficiently so that a small 

165 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

table was placed in an odd corner in the 
Department of Education for the exhibition 
of the apparatus. The space assigned was a 
narrow strip between the stairway and the wall. 
But no provision was made to allow Bell 
himself to be present. The young inventor 
was almost entirely without funds. Sanders 
and Hubbard had paid nothing but his room 
rent and the cost of his experiments. He had 
devoted himself to his inventions so entirely 
that he had lost all of his professional in- 
come. So it was that he was forced to face 
the prospect of staying in Boston and allow- 
ing this opportunity of opportunities to pass 
unimproved. His fiancee, Miss Hubbard, 
expected to attend the exposition, and had 
heard nothing of Bell's inability to go. He 
went with her to the station, and as the train 
was leaving she learned for the first time that 
he was not to accompany her. She burst 
into tears at the disappointment. Seeing 
this, Bell dashed madly after the train and 
succeeded in boarding it. Without money 
or baggage, he nevertheless succeeded in ar- 
riving in Philadelphia. 

1 66 



THE CENTENNIAL 

Bell arrived at the exposition but a few days 
before the judges were to make their tour of 
inspection. With considerable difficulty Hub- 
bard had secured their promise that they 
would stop and examine the telephone. They 
seemed to regard it as a toy not worth their 
attention, and the public generally had dis- 
played no interest in the device. When the 
day for the inspection arrived Bell waited 
eagerly. As the day passed his hope began 
to fall, as there seemed little possibility that 
the. judges would reach his exhibit. The 
Western Union's exhibit of recording tele- 
graphs, the self-binding harvester, the first 
electric light, Gray's musical telegraph, and 
other prominently displayed wonders had oc- 
cupied the attention of the scientists. It 
was well past supper-time when they came 
to Bell's table behind the stairs, and most of 
the judges were tired out and loudly an- 
nounced their intention of quitting then and 
there. 

At this critical moment, while they were 

fingering Bell's apparatus indifferently and 

preparing for their departure, a strange and 

167 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

fortunate thing occurred. Followed by a 
group of brilliantly attired courtiers, the 
Emperor of Brazil appeared. He rushed up 
to Bell and greeted him with a warmth of 
affection that electrified the indifferent judges. 
They watched the scene in astonishment, 
wondering who this young Bell was that he 
could attract the attention and the friendship 
of the Emperor. The Emperor had attended 
Bell's school for deaf mutes in Boston when 
it was at the height of its success, and had 
conceived a warm admiration for the young 
man and taken a deep interest in his work. 
The Emperor was ready to examine Bell's 
invention, though the judges were not. Bell 
showed him how to place his ear to the re- 
ceiver, and he then went to the transmitter 
which had been placed at the other end of the 
wire strung along the room. The Emperor 
waited expectantly, the judges watched curi- 
ously. Bell, at a distance, spoke into the 
transmitter. In utter wonderment the Em- 
peror raised his head from the receiver. " My 
God," he cried, "it talks!" 

Skepticism and indifference were at an end 
168 





PROFESSOR BELL S VIBRATING 
REED 



PROFESSOR BELL S FIRST 
TELEPHONE 



- ■ , , 




r 


C ■" C - ■ 



THE FIRST TELEPHONE SWITCH- 
BOARD USED IX NEW HAVEN, 
CONN., FOR EIGHT SUBSCRIBERS 




EARLY NEW YORK EXCHANGE 

Boys were employed as operators at first, 
but they were not adapted to the work so well 
as girls. 







PROFESSOR BELL IN SALEM, MASS., 
AND MR. WATSON IN BOSTON, DEM- 
ONSTRATING THE TELEPHONE BE- 
FORE AUDIENCES IN 1 877 



DR. BELL AT THE TELEPHONE 
OPENING THE NEW YORK-CHICAGO 
LINE, OCTOBER l8, 1892 



THE CENTENNIAL 

among the judges, and they eagerly followed 
the example of the Emperor. Joseph Henry, 
the most venerable savant of them all, took 
his place at the receiver. Though his previous 
talk with Bell, when the telephone was no 
more than an idea, should perhaps have pre- 
pared him, he showed equal astonishment, 
and instantly expressed his admiration. Next 
followed Sir William Thomson, the hero of 
the cable and England's greatest scientist. 
After his return to England Thomson de- 
scribed his sensations. 

"I heard," he said, "'To be or not to be 
. . . there's the rub,' through an electric wire; 
but, scorning monosyllables, the electric artic- 
ulation rose to higher flights, and gave me 
passages from the New York newspapers. 
All this my own ears heard spoken to me with 
unmistakable distinctness by the then cir- 
cular-disk armature of just such another little 
electro-magnet as this I hold in my hand." 

Thomson pronounced Bell's telephone "the 

most wonderful thing he had seen in America." 

The judges had forgotten that they were 

hungry and tired, and remained grouped 

169 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

about the telephone, talking and listening in 
turn until far into the evening. With the 
coming of the next morning Bell's exhibit was 
moved from its obscure corner and given the 
most prominent place that could be found. 
From that time forward it was the wonder of 
the Centennial. 

Yet but a small part of the public could 
attend the exposition and actually test the 
telephone for themselves. Many of these 
believed that it was a hoax, and general skep- 
ticism still prevailed. Business men, though 
they were convinced that the telephone would 
carry spoken messages, nevertheless insisted 
that it presented no business possibilities. 
Hubbard, however, had faith in the invention, 
and as Bell was not a business man, he took 
upon himself the work of promotion — the 
necessary, valuable work which must be ac- 
complished before any big idea or invention 
may be put at the service of the public. 
Hubbard's first move was to plan a publicity 
campaign which should bring the new in- 
vention favorably to the attention of all, 

prove its claims, and silence the skeptics. 

170 



THE CENTENNIAL 

They were too poor to set up an experimental 
line of their own, and so telegraph lines were 
borrowed for short periods wherever possible, 
demonstrations were given and tests made. 
The assistance of the newspapers was invoked 
and news stories of the tests did much to 
popularize the new idea. 

An opportunity then came to Bell to lecture 
and demonstrate the telephone before a scien- 
tific body in Essex. He secured the use of 
a telegraph line and connected the hall with 
the laboratory in Boston. The equipment 
consisted of old-fashioned box 'phones over 
a foot long and eight inches square, built 
about an immense horseshoe magnet. Wat- 
son was stationed in the Boston laboratory. 
Bell started his lecture, with Watson con- 
stantly listening over the telephone. Bell 
would stop from time to time and ask that 
the ability of the telephone to transmit cer- 
tain kinds of sounds be illustrated. Musical 
instruments were played in Boston and heard 
in Essex; then Watson talked, and finally he 
was instructed to sing. He insisted that he 
was not a singer, but the voices of others less 

171 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

experienced in speaking over the crude in- 
struments often failed to carry sufficiently 
well for demonstration purposes. So Watson 
sang, as best he could, "Yankee Doodle," 
" Auld Lang Syne," and other favorites. After 
the lecture had been completed members of 
the audience were invited to talk over the 
telephone. A few of them mustered confi- 
dence to talk with Watson in Boston, and the 
newspaper reporters carefully noted down all 
the details of the conversation. 

The lecture aroused so much interest that 
others were arranged. The first one had been 
free, but admission was charged for the later 
lectures and this income was the first revenue 
Bell had received for his invention. The 
arrangements were generally the same for 
each of the lectures about Boston. The 
names of Longfellow, of Holmes, and of other 
famous American men of letters are found 
among the patrons of some of the lectures in 
Boston. Bell desired to give lectures in New 
York City, but was not certain that his ppa- 
ratus would operate at that distance over the 

lines available. The laboratory was on the 

172 



THE CENTENNIAL 

third floor of a rooming-house, and Watson 
shouted so loud in his efforts to make his 
voice carry that the roomers complained. So 
he took blankets and erected a sort of tent 
over the instruments to muffle the sound. 
When the signal came from Bell that he was 
ready for the test, Watson crawled into the 
tent and began his shoutings. The day was a 
hot one, and by the t me that the test had been 
completed Watson was completely wilted. But 
the complaints of the roomers had been avoided. 
For one of the New York demonstrations 
the services of a negro singer with a rich 
barytone voice had been secured. Watson 
had no little difficulty in rehearsing him for 
the part, as he objected to placing his lips 
close to the transmitter. When the time for 
the test arrived he persisted in backing away 
from the mouthpiece when he sang, and, 
though Watson endeavored to hold the trans- 
mitter closer to him, his efforts were of no 
avail. Finally Bell told Watson that as the 
negro could not be heard he would have to 
sing himself. The girl operator in the labora- 
tory had assembled a number of her girl 

173 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

friends to watch the test, and Watson, who 
did not consider himself a vocalist, did not 
fancy the prospect. But there was no one 
else to sing, the demonstration must proceed, 
and finally Watson struck up " Yankee Doo- 
dle" in a quavering voice. 

The negro looked on in disgust. "Is that 
what you wanted me to do, boss?" 

"Yes," replied the embarrassed Watson. 

"Well, boss, I couldn't sing like that." 

The telegraph wires which were borrowed to 
demonstrate the utility of the telephone 
proved far from perfect for the work at hand. 
Many of the wires were rusted and the insu- 
lation was poor. The stations along the line 
were likely to cut in their relays when the 
test was in progress, and Bell's instruments 
were not arranged to overcome this retarda- 
tion. However, the lectures were a success 
from the popular viewpoint. The public 
flocked to them and the fame of the telephone 
grew. So many cities desired the lecture 
that it finally became necessary for Bell to 
employ an assistant to give the lecture for 
him. Frederick Gower, a Providence news- 

174 



THE CENTENNIAL 

paper man, was selected for this task, and 
soon mastered Bell's lecture. It was then 
possible to give two lectures on the same even- 
ing, Bell delivering one, Gower the other, and 
Watson handling the laboratory end for both. 

Gower secured a contract for the exclusive 
use of the telephone in New England, but 
failed to demonstrate much ability in estab- 
lishing the new device on a business basis. 
How little the possibilities of the telephone 
were then appreciated we may understand 
from the fact that Gower exchanged his im- 
mensely valuable New England rights for the 
exclusive right to lecture on the telephone 
throughout the country. 

The success of these lectures made it pos- 
sible for Bell to marry, and he started for 
England on a wedding-trip. The lectures also 
aroused the necessary interest and made it 
possible to secure capital for the establish- 
ment of telephone lines. It also determined 
Hubbard in his plan of leasing the telephones 
instead of selling them. This was especially 
important, as it made possible the uniformity 
of the efficient Bell system of the present day. 

12 175 



XIV 

IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

The First Telephone Exchange — The Bell Telephone Associa- 
tion — Theodore N. Vail — The Fight with the Western Union 
— Edison and Blake Invent Transmitters — Last Effort of 
the Western Union — Mushroom Companies and Would-be 
Inventors — The Controversy with Gray — Dolbear's Claims 
— The Drawbaugh Case — On a Firm Footing. 

THOUGH public interest had been aroused 
in the telephone, it was still very far from 
being at the service of the nation. The tele- 
phone increases in usefulness just in propor- 
tion to the number of your acquaintances and 
business associates who have telephones in 
their homes or offices. Instruments had to 
be manufactured on a commercial scale, 
telephone systems had to be built up. While 
the struggles of the inventor who seeks to 
apply a new idea are often romantic, the 
efforts of the business executives who place 

the invention, once it is achieved, at the ser- 

176 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

vice of people everywhere, are not less praise- 
worthy and interesting. 

A very few telephones had been leased to 
those who desired to establish private lines, 
but it was not until May of 1877 that the first 
telephone system was established with an 
exchange by means of which those having 
telephones might talk with one another. There 
was a burglar-alarm system in Boston which 
had wires running from six banks to a central 
station. The owner of this suggested that 
telephones be installed in the banks using 
the burglar-alarm wires. Hubbard gladly 
loaned the instruments for the purpose. In- 
struments were installed in the banks without 
saying anything to the bankers, or making any 
charge for the service. One banker demanded 
that his telephone be removed, insisting that 
it was a foolish toy. But even with the crude 
little exchange the first system proved its 
worth. Others were established in New 
York, Philadelphia, and other cities on a com- 
mercial basis. A man from Michigan ap- 
peared and secured the perpetual rights for 

his State, and for his foresight and enterprise 

177 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

he was later to be rewarded by the sale of 
these rights for a quarter of a million dollars. 
The free service to the Boston bankers was 
withdrawn and a commercial system installed 
there. 

But these exchanges served but a few 
people, and were poorly equipped. There 
was, of course, no provision for communica- 
tion between cities. With the telephone over 
a year old, less than a thousand instruments 
were in use. But Hubbard, who was directing 
the destinies of the enterprise during Bell's 
absence in Europe, decided that the time had 
come to organize. Accordingly the Bell 
Telephone Association was formed, with Bell, 
Hubbard, Sanders, and Watson as the share- 
holders. Sanders was the only one of the 
four with any considerable sum of money, and 
his resources were limited. He staked his 
entire credit in the enterprise, and managed 
to furnish funds with which the fight for 
existence could be carried on. But a business 
depression was upon the land and it was not 
easy to secure support for the telephone. 

The entrance of the Western Union Tele- 
178 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

graph Company into the telephone field 
brought the affairs of the Bell company to 
a crisis. As we have seen, the telegraph com- 
pany had developed into a great and powerful 
corporation with wires stretching across the 
length and breadth of the land and agents 
and offices established in every city and town 
of importance. Once the telephone began 
to be used as a substitute for the telegraph in 
conveying messages, the telegraph officials 
awoke to the fact that here, possibly, was a 
dangerous rival, and dropped the viewpoint 
that Bell's telephone was a mere plaything. 
They acquired the inventions of Edison, 
Gray, and Dolbear, and entered the tele- 
phone field, announcing that they were pre- 
pared to furnish the very best in telephonic 
communication. This sudden assault by the 
most powerful corporation in America, while 
it served to arouse public confidence in the 
telephone, made it necessary for Hubbard 
to reorganize his forces and find a general 
capable of doing battle against such a foe. 
Hubbard's political activities had brought 

to him a Presidential appointment as head of 

179 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

a commission on mail transportation. In 
the course of the work for the Government he 
had come much in contact with a young man 
named Theodore N. Vail, who was head of 
the Government mail service. He had been 
impressed by Vail's ability and had in turn 
introduced Vail to the telephone and aroused 
his enthusiasm in its possibilities. This Vail 
was a cousin of the Alfred Vail who was 
Morse's co-worker, and who played so promi- 
nent a part in the development of the tele- 
graph. His experience in the Post-office De- 
partment had given him an understanding 
of the problems of communication in the 
United States, and had developed his execu- 
tive ability. Realizing the possibilities of the 
telephone, he relinquished his governmental 
post and cast his fortunes with the telephone 
pioneers, becoming general manager of the 
Bell company. 

The Western Union strengthened its posi- 
tion by the introduction of a new and im- 
proved transmitter. This was the work of 
Thomas Edison, and was so much better 

than Bell's transmitter that it enabled the 

180 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

Western Union to offer much better tele- 
phonic equipment. As we have seen, Bell's 
transmitter and receiver were very similar, 
being about the same as the receiver now in 
common use. In his transmitter Edison 
placed tiny bits of carbon in contact with the 
diaphragm. As the diaphragm vibrated un- 
der the sound-impulses the pressure upon the 
carbon granules was varied. An electric cur- 
rent was passed through the carbon particles, 
whose electrical resistance was varied by the 
changing pressure from the diaphragm. Thus 
the current was thrown into undulations cor- 
responding to the sound-waves, and passed 
over the line and produced corresponding 
sounds in the receiver. Much stronger cur- 
rents could be utilized than those generated 
by Bell's instrument, and thus the transmitter 
was much more effective for longer distances. 
Bell returned from Europe to find the af- 
fairs of his company in a sorry plight. Only 
the courage and generalship of Vail kept it 
in the field at all. Bell was penniless, having 
failed to establish the telephone abroad, even 
as Morse before him had failed to secure 

i8x 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

foreign revenue from his invention. Bell's 
health failed him, and as he lay helpless in 
the hospital his affairs were indeed at a low 
ebb. At this juncture Francis Blake, of Bos- 
ton, came forward with an improved trans- 
mitter which he offered to the Bell company 
in exchange for stock. The instrument 
proved a success and was gladly adopted, 
proving just what was needed to make pos- 
sible successful competition with the Western 
Union. 

Prolonged patent litigation followed, and 
after a bitter legal struggle the Western Union 
officials became convinced of two things : one, 
that the Bell company, under Vail's leadership, 
would not surrender; second, that Bell was 
the original inventor of the telephone and that 
his patent was valid. The Western Union, 
however, seemed to have strong basis for 
its claim that the new transmitter of the Bell 
people was an infringement of Edison's pat- 
ent. A compromise was arranged between 
the contestants by which the two companies 
divided the business of furnishing communi- 
cation by wire in the United States, This 

i8? 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

agreement proved of the greatest benefit to 
both organizations, and did much to make 
possible the present development and uni- 
versal service of both the telephone and tele- 
graph. By the terms of the agreement the 
Western Union recognized Bell's patent and 
agreed to withdraw from the telephone busi- 
ness. The Bell company agreed not to en- 
gage in the telegraph business and to take 
over the Western Union telephone system 
and apparatus, paying a royalty on all tele- 
phone rentals. Experience has demonstrated 
that the two businesses are not competitive, 
but supplement each other. It is therefore 
proper that they should work side by side 
with mutual understanding. 

Success had come at last to the telephone 
pioneers. Other battles were still to be fought 
before their position was to be made secure, 
but from the moment when the Western Union 
admitted defeat the Bell company was the 
leader. The stock of the company advanced 
to a point where Bell, Hubbard, Sanders, and 
Watson found themselves in the possession 

of wealth as a reward for their pioneering. 

J83 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

The Western Union had no sooner with- 
drawn as a competitor of the Bell organiza- 
tion than scores of small, local companies 
sprang up, all ready to pirate the Bell patent 
and push the claims of some rival inventor. 
A very few of them really tried to establish 
telephone systems, but the majority were 
organized simply to sell stock to a gullible 
public. They stirred up a continuous tur- 
moil, and made much trouble for the larger 
company, though their patent claims were 
persistently defeated in the courts. 

Most of the rival claimants who sprang up, 

once the telephone had become an established 

fact and had proved its value, were men of 

neither prominence nor scientific attainments. 

Of a very different type was Elisha Gray, 

whose work we have before noticed, and who 

now came forward with the claim that he had 

invented a telephone in advance of Bell. 

Gray was a practical man of real scientific 

attainments, but, as we have noticed, his 

efforts in search of a telephone were from the 

viewpoint of a musical telegraph and so 

destined to failure. It has frequently been 

184 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

stated that Gray filed his application for a 
patent on a telephone of his invention but 
a few minutes after Bell, and so Bell wrested 
the honor from him by the scantiest of mar- 
gins. A careful reading of the testimony 
brought out in Gray's suit against Bell does 
not support such a statement. While Bell 
filed an application for a patent on a com- 
pleted invention, Gray filed, a few moments 
later, a caveat. This was a document, 
stating that he hoped to invent a telephone 
of a -certain kind therein stated, and would 
serve to protect his rights until he should 
have time to perfect it. Thus Gray did not 
have a completed invention, and he later 
failed to perfect a telephone along the lines 
described in his caveat. The decision of the 
court supported Bell's claims in full. 

Another of the Western Union's telephone 
experts, Professor Dolbear, of Tufts College, 
also sought to make capital of his knowledge 
of the telephone. He based his claims upon 
an improvement of the Reis musical tele- 
graph, which had formed the starting-point 
for so many experimenters. The case fell 

185 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

flat, however, for when the apparatus was 
brought into court no one could make it talk. 

None of the attacks upon Bell's claim to be 
the original inventor of the telephone aroused 
more popular interest at the time than the 
famous Drawbaugh case. Daniel Drawbaugh 
was a country mechanic with a habit of read- 
ing of the new inventions in the scientific 
journals. He would work out models of 
many of these for himself, and, showing 
them very proudly, often claim them as his 
own devices. Drawbaugh was now put for- 
ward by the opponents of the Bell organiza- 
tion as having invented a telephone before 
Bell. It was claimed that he had been too 
poor to secure a patent or to bring his inven- 
tion to popular notice. Much sympathy was 
thus aroused for him and the legal battle 
was waged to interminable length, with the 
usual result. Bell's patent was again sus- 
tained, and Drawbaugh's claims were pro- 
nounced without merit. 

Many other legal battles followed, but the 
dominance of the Bell organization, resting 
upon the indisputable fact that Bell was 

186 



IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION 

the first man to conceive and execute a 
practical telephone, could not be shaken. 
The telephone business was on a firm footing : 
it had demonstrated its real service to the 
public; it had become a necessity; and, under 
the able leadership of Vail, was fast extend- 
ing its field of usefulness. 



XV 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

The First Suggestion — Morse Sends Messages Through the 
Water — Trowbridge Telegraphs Through the Earth — Ex- 
periments of Preece and Heaviside in England — Edison 
Telegraphs from Moving Trains — Researches of Hertz Dis- 
close the Hertzian Waves. 



GREAT as are the possibilities of the 
telegraph and the telephone in the ser- 
vice of man, these instruments are still limited 
to the wires over which they must operate. 
Communication was not possible until wires 
had been strung; where wires could not be 
strung communication was impossible. Much 
yet remained to be done before perfection 
in communication was attained, and, though 
the public generally considered the telegraph 
and the telephone the final achievement, 
men of science were already searching for an 
even better way. 

The first suggestion that electric currents 
carrying messages might some day travel with- 

188 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

out wires seems to have come from K. A. 
Steinheil, of Munich. In 1838 he discovered 
that if the two ends of a single wire carrying 
the electric current be connected with the 
ground a complete circuit is formed, the earth 
acting as the return. Thus he was able to 
dispense with one wire, and he suggested 
that some day it might be possible to elimi- 
nate the wire altogether. The fact that the 
current bearing messages could be sent 
through the water was demonstrated by 
Morse as early as 1842. He placed plates at 
the termini of a circuit and submerged them 
in water some distance apart on one side of a 
canal. Other plates were placed on the op- 
posite side of the waterway and were con- 
nected by a wire with a sensitive galvanom- 
eter in series to act as a receiver. Currents 
sent from the opposite side were recorded by 
the galvanometer and the possibility of com- 
munication through the water was established. 
Others carried these experiments further, it 
being even suggested that messages might be 
sent across the Atlantic by this method. 

But Bell's greatest contribution to the 
189 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

search for wireless telegraphy was not his 
direct work in this field, but the telephone 
itself. His telephone receiver provided. the 
wireless experimenters with an instrument of 
extreme sensitiveness by which they were 
able to detect currents which the mirror gal- 
vanometer could not receive. While experi- 
menting with a telephone along a telegraph 
line a curious phenomenon was noticed. The 
telephone experimenters heard music very 
clearly. They investigated and found that 
another telegraph wire, strung along the same 
poles, but at the usual distance and with the 
usual insulation, was being used for a test 
of Edison's musical telephone. Many other 
similar tests were made and the effect was 
always noted. In some way the message on 
one line had been conveyed across the air-gap 
and had been recorded by the telephones on 
the other, line. It was decided that this had 
been caused by induction. 

Prof. John Trowbridge, of Harvard Uni- 
versity, might well be termed the grandfather 
of wireless telegraphy. He made the first ex- 
tensive investigation of the subject, and his 

190 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

experiments in sending messages without 
wires and his discoveries furnished informa- 
tion and inspiration for those who were to 
follow. His early experiments tested the 
possibility of using the earth as a conductor. 
He demonstrated that when an electric cur- 
rent is sent into the earth it spreads from that 
point in waves in all directions, just as when 
a stone is cast into a pond the ripples widen 
out from that point, becoming fainter and 
fainter until they reach the shore. He further 
found that these currents could be detected 
by ' grounding the terminals of a telephone 
circuit. Telegraphy through the earth was 
thus possible. However, the farther the re- 
ceiving station was from the sending station 
the wider must be the distance between the 
telephone terminals and the smaller the cur- 
rent received. Professor Trowbridge did not 
find it possible to operate his system at a 
sufficient distance to make it of value, but he 
did demonstrate that the currents do travel 
through the earth and that they can be set 
to carrying messages. 

Professor Trowbridge also revived the idea 

*3 191 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

of telegraphing across the Atlantic by utiliz- 
ing the conductivity of the sea-water to 
carry the currents. In working out the plan 
theoretically he discovered that the terminals 
on the American side would have to be widely 
separated — one in Nova Scotia and the other 
in Florida — and that they would have to be 
connected by an insulated cable. Two widely 
separated points on the coast of France were 
suggested for the other terminals. He also 
calculated that very high voltages would be 
necessary, and the practical difficulties in- 
volved made it seem certain that such a sys- 
tem would cost far too much to construct 
and to operate to be profitable. 

Trowbridge suggested the possibility of us- 
ing such a system for establishing communi- 
cation between ships at sea. Ship could com- 
municate with ship, over short distances, 
during a fog. A trailing wire was to be used 
to increase the sending and receiving power, 
and Trowbridge believed that with a dynamo 
capable of supplying current for a hundred 
lights, communication could be established at 

a distance of half a mile. 

192 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

Not satisfied with the earth or the sea as a 
medium for carrying the current, Trowbridge 
essayed to use the air. He believed that this 
was possible, and that it would be accom- 
plished at no distant date. He believed, 
however, that such a system could not be 
operated over considerable distances because 
of the curvature of the earth. He endeavored 
to establish communication through the air 
by induction. He demonstrated that if one 
coil of wire be set up and a current sent 
through it, a similar coil facing it will have 
like currents induced within it, which may be 
detected with a telephone receiver. He also 
determined that the currents were strongest 
in the receiving coil when it was placed in a 
plane parallel with the sending coil. By 
turning the receiving coil about until the 
sound was strongest in the telephone receiver, 
it was thus possible to determine the direc- 
tion from which the messages were coming. 
Trowbridge recognized the great value of this 
feature to a ship at sea. 

But these induced currents could only be 
detected at a distance by the use of enormous 

193 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

coils. To receive at a half-mile a coil of 
eight hundred feet radius would have been 
necessary, and this was obviously impossible 
for use on shipboard. So these experiments 
also developed no practical improvement in 
the existing means of communication. But 
Professor Trowbridge had demonstrated new 
possibilities, and had set men thinking along 
new lines. He was the pioneer who pointed 
the way to a great invention, though he him- 
self failed to attain it. 

Bell followed up Trowbridge's suggestions 
of using the water as a medium of communi- 
cation, and in a series of experiments con- 
ducted on the Potomac River established 
communication between moving ships. 

Professor Dolbear also turned from tele- 
phone experimentation to the search for the 
wireless. He grounded his wires and sent 
high currents into the earth, but improved 
his system and took another step toward the 
final achievement by adding a large induction 
coil to his sending equipment. He suggested 
that the spoken word might be sent as well 

as dots and dashes, and so sought the wireless 

194 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

telephone as well as the wireless telegraph. 
Like his predecessors, his experiments were 
successful only at short distances. 

The next application of the induction tele- 
graph was to establish communication with 
moving trains. Several experimenters had 
suggested it, but it remained for Thomas A. 
Edison to actually accomplish it. He set up 
a plate of tin-foil on the engine or cars, oppo- 
site the telegraph wires. Currents could be 
induced across the gap, no matter what the 
speed of the train, and, traveling along the 
wires to the station, communication was thus 
established. Had Edison continued his in- 
vestigation further, instead of turning to 
other pursuits, he might have achieved the 
means of communicating through the air at 
considerable distances. 

These experiments by Americans in the 
early 'eighties seemed to promise that Amer- 
ica was to produce the wireless telegraph, as 
it had produced the telegraph and the tele- 
phone. But the greatest activity now shifted 
to Europe and the American men of science 
failed to push their researches to a successful 

195 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

conclusion. Sir W. H. Preece, an English- 
man, brought himself to public notice by- 
establishing communication with the Isle of 
Wight by Morse's method. Messages were 
sent and received during a period when the 
cable to the island was out of commission, 
and thus telegraphing without wires was put 
to practical use. 

Preece carried his experiments much fur-, 
ther. In 1885 he laid out two great squares of 
insulated wire, a quarter of a mile to the side, 
and at a distance of a quarter of a mile from 
each other. Telephonic communication was 
established between them, and thus he had 
attained wireless telephony by induction. In 
1887, another Englishman, A. W. Heaviside, 
laid circuits over two miles long on the 
surface and other circuits in the galleries of a 
coal-mine three hundred and fifty feet below, 
and established communication between the 
circuits. Working together, Preece and 
Heaviside extended the distances over which 
they could communicate. Preece finally de- 
cided that a combination of conduction and 
induction was the best means of wireless' 

196 



TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES 

communication. He grounded the wire of his 
circuit at two points and raised it to a consid- 
erable height between these points. Preece's 
work was to put the theories of Professor 
Trowbridge to practical use and thus bring 
the final achievement a step nearer. 

But conduction and induction combined 
would not carry messages to a distance that 
would enable extensive communication. A 
new medium had yet to be found, and this 
was the work of Heinrich Hertz, a young 
German scientist. He was experimenting 
with two flat coils of wire, as had many others 
before him, but one of the coils had a small 
gap in it. Passing the discharge from a 
condenser into this coil, Hertz discovered that 
the spark caused when the current jumped 
the gap set up electrical vibrations that ex- 
cited powerful currents in the other coil. 
These currents were noticeable, though the 
coils were a very considerable distance apart. 
Thus Hertz had found out how to send out 
electrical waves that would travel to a con- 
siderable distance. 

What was the medium that carried these 
i97 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

waves? This was the question that Hertz 
asked himself, and the answer was, the ether. 
We know that light will pass through a 
vacuum, and these electric waves would do 
likewise. It was evident that they did not 
pass through the air. The answer, as evolved 
by Hertz and approved by other scientists, is 
that they travel through the ether, a strange 
substance which pervades all space. Hertz 
discovered that light and his electrical waves 
traveled at the same speed, and so deduced 
that light consists of electrical vibrations in 
the ether. 

With the knowledge that this all-pervading 
ether would carry electric waves at the speed 
of light, that the waves could be set up by the 
discharge of a spark across a spark-gap in a 
coil, and that they could be received in another 
coil in resonance with the first, the establish- 
ment of a practical wireless telegraph was 
not far away. 



XVI 

AN ITALIAN BOY'S WORK 

The Italian Youth who Dreamed Wonderful Dreams — His 
Studies — Early Detectors — Marconi Seeks an Efficient De- 
tector — Devises New Sending Methods — The Wireless Tele- 
graph Takes Form — Experimental Success. 

WITH the nineteenth century approach- 
ing its close, man had discovered that 
the electric waves would travel through the 
ether; he had learned something of how 
to propagate those waves, and something of 
how to receive them. But no one had yet 
been able to combine these discoveries in 
practical form, to apply them to the task of 
carrying messages, to make the improvements 
necessary to make them available for use at 
considerable distances. Though many ma- 
ture scientists had devoted themselves to the 
problem, it remained for a youth to solve it. 
The youth was Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian. 
We have noticed that the telegraph, the 
199 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

cable, and the telephone were the work of 
those of the Anglo-Saxon race — Englishmen or 
Americans — so it came as a distinct surprise 
that an Italian youth should make the next 
great application of electricity to communica- 
tion. But Anglo-Saxon blood flows in Mar- 
coni's veins. Though his father was an 
Italian, his mother was an Irishwoman. He 
was born at Villa Griff one near Bologna, 
Italy, on April 25, 1874. He studied in the 
schools of Bologna and of Florence, and early 
showed his interest in scientific affairs. From 
his mother he learned English, which he 
speaks as fluently as he does his native tongue. 
As a boy he was allowed to attend English 
schools for short periods, spending some time 
at Bedford and at Rugby. 

One of his Italian teachers was Professor 
Righi, who had made a close study of the 
Hertzian waves, and who was himself making 
no small contributions to the advancement of 
the science. From him young Marconi learned 
of the work which had been accomplished, 
and of the apparatus which was then avail- 
able. Marconi was a quiet boy — almost shy. 

200 



AN ITALIAN BOY'S WORK 

He did not display the aggressive energy so 
common with many promising youths. But 
though he was quiet, he was not slothful. 
He entered into his studies with a determina- 
tion and an application that brought to him 
great results. He was a student and a 
thinker. Any scientific book or paper which 
came before him was eagerly devoured. It 
was this habit of careful and persistent study 
that made it possible for Marconi to accom- 
plish such wonderful things at an early age. 

Marconi had learned of the Hertzian waves. 
It occurred to him that by their aid wireless 
telegraphy might be accomplished. The boy 
saw the wonderful possibilities; he dreamed 
dreams of how these waves might carry mes- 
sages from city to city, from ship to shore, 
and from continent to continent without 
wires. He realized his own youth and inex- 
perience, and it seemed certain to him that 
many able scientists had had the same vision 
and must be struggling toward its attainment. 
For a year Marconi dreamed these dreams, 
studying the books and papers which would 

tell him more of these wonderful waves. 

201 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Each week he expected the news that wireless 
telegraphy had been established, but the news 
never came. Finally he concluded that others, 
despite their greater opportunities, had not 
been so far-seeing as he had thought. 

Marconi attacked the problem himself with 
the dogged persistence and the studious care 
so characteristic of him. He began his experi- 
ments upon his fathers farm, the elder Mar- 
coni encouraging the youth and providing 
him with funds with which to purchase ap- 
paratus. He set up poles at the opposite 
sides of the garden and on them mounted the 
simple sending and receiving instruments 
which were then available, using plates of tin 
for his aerials. He set up a simple spark-gap, 
as had Hertz, and used a receiving device 
little more elaborate. A Morse telegraph-key 
was placed in circuit with the spark-gap. 
When the key was held down for a longer 
period a long spark passed between the brass 
knobs of the spark-gap and a dash was thus 
transmitted. When the key was depressed 
for a shorter period a dot in the Morse code 
was sent forth. After much work and adjust- 

202 




Copyright oy Brown Brothers. 

GUGLIEI.MO MARCONI 
Photographed in uniform as an officer of the Italian army 



AN ITALIAN BOY'S WORK 

ment Marconi was able to send a message 
across the garden. Others had accomplished 
this for similar distances, but they lacked 
Marconi's imagination and persistence, and 
failed to carry their experiments further. To 
the young Irish-Italian this was but a start- 
ing-point. 

Marconi quickly found that the receiver 
was the least effective part of the existing 
apparatus. The waves spread in all direc- 
tions from the sending station and become 
feebler and feebler as the distance increases. 
To make wireless telegraphy effective over 
any considerable distance a highly efficient 
and extremely sensitive receiving device is 
necessary. Some special means of detecting 
the feeble currents was necessary. The co- 
herer was the solution. As early as 1870 a 
Mr. S. A. Varley, an Englishman, had dis- 
covered that when he endeavored to send a 
current through a mass of carbon granules 
the tiny particles arranged themselves in 
order under the influence of the electric cur- 
rent, and offered a free path for the passage 

of the current. When shaken apart they again 

203 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

resisted the flow of current until it became 
powerful enough to cause them to again ar- 
range themselves into a sort of bridge for its 
passage. Thus was the principle of the co- 
herer discovered. 

An Italian scientist, Professor Calzecchi- 
Onesti, carried these experiments still fur- 
ther. He used various substances in place of 
the carbon granules and showed that some of 
them will arrange themselves so as to allow 
the passage of a current under the influence 
of the spark setting up the Hertzian waves. 
Professor E. Branly, of the Catholic Univer- 
sity of Paris, took up this work in 1890. 
He arranged metal filings in a small glass 
tube six inches long and arranged a tapper 
to disarrange the filings after they had been 
brought together under the influence of the 
spark. 

With the Branly coherer as the basis Mar- 
coni sought to make improvements which 
would result in the detector he was seeking. 
For his powder he used nickel, mixed with a 
small proportion of fine silver filings. This 

he placed between silver plugs in a small 

204 



AN ITALIAN BOY'S WORK 

glass tube. Platinum wires were connected 
to the silver plugs and brought out at the 
opposite ends of the tube. It required long 
study to determine just how to adjust the 
plugs between which the powder was loosely 
arranged. If the particles were pressed to- 
gether too tightly they would not fall apart 
readily enough under the influence of the 
tapper. If too much space was allowed 
they would not cohere readily enough. Mar- 
coni also discovered that a larger proportion 
of silver in the powder and a smaller amount 
between the plugs increased the sensitiveness 
of the receiver. Yet he found it well not to 
have it too sensitive lest it cohere for every 
stray current and so give false signals. 

Under the influence of the electric waves 
set up from the spark-gap these tiny particles 
so arranged themselves that they would 
readily carry a current between the plugs. 
By placing these plugs with their platinum 
terminals in circuit with a local battery the 
current from this local battery was given a 
passage through the coherer by the action of 
the electric waves coming through the ether. 

205 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

While these waves themselves were too feeble 
to operate a receiving mechanism, they were 
strong enough to arrange the particles of 
the sensitive metal in the tube in order, so 
that the current from the local battery could 
pass through them. This current operated a 
telegraph relay which in turn operated a 
Morse receiving instrument. An electrical 
tapper was also arranged in this circuit so that 
it would strike the tube a light blow after 
each long or short wave representing a dot 
or a dash had been received. Thus the par- 
ticles were disarranged, ready to array them- 
selves when the next wave came through the 
ether and so form the bridge over which the 
stronger local circuit could convey the signal. 
Marconi further discovered that the most 
effective arrangement was to run a wire from 
one terminal of the coherer into the ground, 
and from the other to an elevated metal plate 
or wire. The waves coming through the ether 
were received by the elevated wire and were 
conducted down to the coherer. Experi- 
menting with his apparatus on the posts in 
the garden, he discovered that an increase in 

206 



AN ITALIAN BOY'S WORK 

the height of the wire greatly increased the 
receiving distance. 

At his sending station he used the exciter 
of his teacher, Professor Righi. This, too, 
he modified and perfected for his practical 
purpose. As he used the device it consisted 
of two brass spheres a millimeter apart. An 
envelope was provided so that the sides of 
the spheres toward each other and the space 
between was occupied by vaseline oil which 
served to keep the faces of the spheres clean 
and produce a more uniform spark. Outside 
the two spheres, but in line with them, were 
placed two smaller spheres at a distance of 
about two-fifths of a centimeter. The ter- 
minals of the sending circuit were attached 
to these. The secondary coil of a large induc- 
tion coil was placed in series with them, and 
batteries were wired in series with the pri- 
mary of the coil with a sending key to make 
and break the circuit. When the key was 
closed a series of sparks sprang across the 
spark-gap, and the waves were thus set up in 
the ether and carried the message to the 

receiving station. 
14 207 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

As in the case of his receiving station, Mar- 
coni found that results were much improved 
when he wired his sending apparatus so that 
one terminal was grounded and the other 
connected with an elevated wire or aerial, 
which is now called the antenna. By 1896 
Marconi had brought this apparatus to a state 
of perfection where he could transmit mes- 
sages to a distance of several miles. This 
\ Irish-Italian youth of twenty-two had mas- 
tered the problem which had baffled veteran 
scientists and was ready to place a new won- 
der at the service of the world. 

The devices which Marconi thus assembled 
and put to practical use had been, in the 
hands of others, little more than scientific 
toys. Others had studied the Hertzian waves 
and the methods of sending and detecting 
them from a purely scientific viewpoint. 
Marconi had the vision to realize the prac- 
tical possibilities, and, though little more 
than a boy, had assembled the whole into a 
workable system of communication. He 
richly deserves the laurels and the rewards 

as the inventor of the wireless telegraph. 

208 



XVII 

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY ESTABLISHED 

Marconi Goes to England — He Confounds the Skeptics — A 
Message to France Without Wires — The Attempt to Span 
the Ocean — Marconi in America Receives the First Message 
from Europe — Fame and Recognition Achieved. 

THE time had now come for Marconi to 
introduce himself and his discoveries to 
the attention of the world. He went to Eng- 
land, and on June 2, 1896, applied for a 
patent on his system of wireless telegraphy. 
Soon afterward his plans were submitted to 
the postal-telegraph authorities. Fortunately 
for Marconi and for the world, W. H. Preece 
was then in authority in this department. 
He himself had experimented with some little 
success with wireless messages. He was able 
enough to see the merit in Marconi's discov- 
eries and generous enough to give him full 

recognition and every encouragement. 

209 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

The apparatus was first set up in the 
General Post-office in London, another station 
being located on the roof but a hundred yards 
away. Though several walls intervened, the 
Hertzian waves traversed them without diffi- 
culty, and messages were sent and received. 
Stations were then set up on Salisbury Plain, 
some two miles apart, and communication 
was established between them. 

Though the postal-telegraph authorities re- 
ceived Marconi's statements of his discov- 
eries with open mind and put his apparatus 
to fair tests, the public at large was much less 
tolerant. The skepticism which met Morse 
and Bell faced Marconi. Men of science 
doubted his statements and scoffed at his 
claims. The Hertzian waves might be all 
right to operate scientific playthings, they 
thought, but they were far too uncertain to 
furnish a medium for carrying messages in 
any practical way. Then, as progress was 
made and Marconi began to prove his sys- 
tem, the inevitable jealousies arose. Experi- 
menters who might have invented the wire- 
less telegraph, but who did not, came forward 

2IO 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

to contest Marconi's claims and to seek to 
snatch his laurels from him. 

The young inventor forged steadily ahead, 
studying and experimenting, devising im- 
proved apparatus, meeting the difficulties 
one by one as they arose. In most of his 
early experiments he had used a modification 
of the little tin boxes which had been set up 
in his father's garden as his original aerials. 
Having discovered that the height of the 
aerials increased the range of the stations, 
he covered a large kite with tin-foil and, 
sending it up with a wire, used this as an 
aerial. Balloons were similarly employed. 
He soon recognized, however, that a practical 
commercial system, which should be capable 
of sending and receiving messages day and 
night, regardless of the weather, could not 
be operated with kites or balloons. The 
height of masts was limited, so he sought 
to increase the range by increasing the elec- 
trical power of the current sending forth the 
sparks from the sending station. Here he 
was on the right path, and another long step 
forward had been taken. 

211 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

In the fall of 1897 he set up a mast on the 
Isle of Wight, one hundred and twenty feet 
high. From the top of this was strung a 
single wire and a new series of experiments 
was begun. Marconi had spent the summer 
in Italy demonstrating his apparatus, and 
had established communication between a 
station on the shore and a war-ship of the 
Italian Navy equipped with his apparatus. 
He now secured a small steamer for his experi- 
ments from his station on the Isle of Wight 
and equipped it with a sixty-foot mast. Com- 
munication was maintained with the boat 
day after day, regardless of weather condi- 
tions. The distance at which communication 
could be maintained was steadily increased 
until communication was established with the 
mainland. 

In July of 1898 the wireless demonstrated 
its utility as a conveyer of news. An enter- 
prising Dublin newspaper desired to cover 
the Kingstown regatta with the aid of the 
wireless. In order to do this a land station 
was erected at Kingstown, and another on 
board a steamer which followed the yachts. 

212 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

A telephone wire connected the Kingstown 
station with the newspaper office, and as the 
messages came by wireless from the ship they 
were telephoned to Dublin and published in 
successive editions of the evening papers. 

This feat attracted so much attention that 
Queen Victoria sought the aid of the wireless 
for her own necessities. Her son, the Prince 
of Wales, lay ill on his yacht, and the aged 
queen desired to keep in constant communi- 
cation with him. Marconi accordingly placed 
one station on the prince's yacht and another 
at Osborne House, the queen's residence. 
Communication was readily maintained, and 
one hundred and fifty messages passed by wire- 
less between the prince and the royal mother. 

While the electric waves bearing the mes- 
sages were found to pass through wood, stone, 
or earth, it was soon noticed in practical 
operation that when many buildings, or a 
hill, or any other solid object of size inter- 
vened between the stations the waves were 
greatly retarded and the messages seriously 
interfered with. When the apparatus was 

placed on board steel vessels it was found that 

213 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

any part of the vessel coming between the 
stations checked the communication. Mar- 
coni sought to avoid these difficulties by- 
erecting high aerials at every point, so that 
the waves might pass through the clear air 
over solid obstructions. 

Marconi's next effort was to connect France 
with England. He went to France to demon- 
strate his apparatus to the French Govern- 
ment and set up a station near Boulogne. 
The aerial was raised to a height of one hun- 
dred and fifty feet. Another station was 
erected near Folkestone on the English coast, 
across the Channel. A group of French offi- 
cials gathered in the little station near Folke- 
stone for the test, which was made on the 
27th of March, 1899. Marconi sent the mes- 
sages, which were received by the station on 
the French shore without difficulty. Other 
messages were received from France, and wire- 
less communication between the nations was 
an accomplished fact. 

The use of the wireless for ships and light- 
houses sprang into favor, and wireless sta- 
tions were established all around the British 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

coasts so that ships equipped with wireless 
might keep in communication with the land. 
The British Admiralty quickly recognized the 
value of wireless telegraphy to war vessels. 
While field telegraphs and telephones had 
served the armies, the navies were still de- 
pendent upon primitive signals, since a wire 
cannot be strung from ship to ship nor from 
ship to shore. So the British battle-ships were 
equipped with wireless apparatus and a thor- 
ough test was made. A sham battle was held 
in which all of the orders were sent by wire- 
less, and communication was constantly main- 
tained both between the flag-ships and the 
vessels of their fleets and between the flag- 
ships and the shore. Marconi's invention had 
again proved itself. 

The wireless early demonstrated its great 
value as a means of saving life at sea. Light- 
ships off the English coast were equipped with 
the wireless and were thus enabled to warn 
ships of impending storms, and on several 
occasions the wireless was used to summon 
aid from the shore when ships were sinking 
because of accidents near the lightship. 

215 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Following the establishment of communi- 
cation with France, Marconi increased the 
range of his apparatus until he was able to 
cover most of eastern Europe. In one of his 
demonstrations he sent messages to Italy. 
His ambition, however, was to send messages 
across the Atlantic, and he now attacked 
this stupendous task. On the coast of Corn- 
wall, England, he began the construction of a 
station which should have sufficient power to 
send a message to America. Instead of using 
a single wire for his aerial, he erected many 
tall poles and strung a number of wires from 
pole to pole. The comparatively feeble bat- 
teries which had furnished the currents used 
in the earlier efforts were replaced with 
great power-driven dynamos, and converters 
were used instead of the induction coil. Thus 
was the great Poldhu station established. 

Late in 1901 Marconi crossed to America 
to superintend the preparations there, and 
that he himself might be ready to receive the 
first message, should it prove possible to span 
the ocean. Signal Hill, near St. John's, New- 
foundland, was selected as the place for the 

216 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

American station. The expense of building a 
great aerial for the test was too great, and so 
dependence was had upon kites to ^end the 
wires aloft. For many days Marconi's as- 
sistants struggled with the great kites in an 
effort to get them aloft. At last they flew, 
carrying the wire to a great height. The wire 
was carried into a small Government building 
near by in which Marconi stationed himself. 
At his ear was a telephone receiver, this 
having been substituted for the relay and the 
Morse instrument because of its far greater 
sensitiveness. 

Marconi had instructed his operator at 
Poldhu to send simply the letter "s" at an 
hour corresponding to 12.30 A.M. in New- 
foundland. Great was the excitement and 
suspense in Cornwall when the hour for the 
test arrived. Forgetting that they were 
sleepy, the staff crowded about the sending 
key, and the little building at the foot of the 
ring of great masts supporting the aerial shook 
with the crash of the blinding sparks as the 
three dots which form the letter "s" were 

sent forth. Even greater was the tension on 

217 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

the Newfoundland coast, where Marconi sat 
eagerly waiting for the signal. Finally it 
came, three faint ticks in the telephone re- 
ceiver. The wireless had crossed the Atlantic. 
Marconi had no sending apparatus, so that it 
was not until the cable had carried the news 
that those in England knew that the message 
had been received. 

Because Marconi had never made a state- 
ment or a claim he had not been able to prove, 
he had attained a reputation for veracity 
which made his statement that he had re- 
ceived a signal across the Atlantic carry weight 
with the scientists. Many, of course, were 
skeptical, and insisted that the simple signal 
had come by chance from some ship not far 
away. But the inventor pushed quietly and 
steadily ahead, making arrangements to per- 
fect the system and establish it so that it 
would be of commercial use. 

Marconi returned to England, but two 

months later set out for America again on the 

liner Philadelphia with improved apparatus. 

He kept in constant communication with his 

station at Poldhu until the ship was a hun- 

218 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

dred and fifty miles from shore. Beyond 
that point he could not send messages, as the 
sending apparatus on the ship lacked sufficient 
power. Messages were received, however, 
until the sending station was over two thou- 
sand miles away. This seemed miraculous 
to those on shipboard, but Marconi accepted 
it as a matter of course. He had equipped the 
Poldhu station to send twenty-one hundred 
miles, and he knew that it should accom- 
plish the feat. 

A large station was set up at Cape Breton, 
Nova Scotia, and regular communication was 
established between there and Poldhu. With 
the establishment of regular transatlantic 
communication the utility of Marconi's in- 
vention, even for work at great distances, was 
no longer open to question. By quiet, unas- 
suming, conscientious work he had put an- 
other great carrier of messages at the service 
of the world, and he now reaped the fame and 
fortune which he so richly deserved. 



XVIII 

THE WIRELESS SERVES THE WORLD 

Marconi Organized Wireless Telegraphy Commercially — The 
New Wonder at the Service of the World — Marine Disasters 
Prevented — The Extension of the Wireless on Shipboard — 
Improved Apparatus — The Wireless in the World War — 
The Boy and the Wireless. 

WITH his clear understanding of the pos- 
sibilities of his invention, Marconi was 
not long in establishing the wireless upon a 
commercial basis. He is a man of keen busi- 
ness judgment, and as he brought his inven- 
tion forward and clearly demonstrated its 
worth at a time when commercial enterprise 
was alert he found no great difficulty in estab- 
lishing his company. The first Marconi com 
pany was organized as early as 1897 under 
the name of the Wireless Telegraph and Sig- 
nal Company, Limited. This was later dis- 
placed by the Marconi Telegraph Company, 
which operates a regular system of stations 

220 



SERVING THE WORLD 

on a commercial basis, carrying messages in 
competition with the cable and telegraph 
companies. It also erects stations for other 
companies which are operated under the 
Marconi patents. 

With the telegraph and the telephone so 
well established and serving the needs of 
ordinary communication on land, it was natu- 
ral that the wireless should make headway 
but slowly as a commercial proposition be- 
tween points on land. For communication 
at sea, however, it had no competition, and 
merchant-ships as well as war vessels were 
rapidly equipped with wireless apparatus. 

When the great liner Republic was sinking 
as a result of a collision off the port of New 
York in 1903 her wireless brought aid. Her 
passengers and crew were taken off in safety, 
and what otherwise would have been a ter- 
rible disaster was avoided by the use of the 
wireless. The utility of the wireless was again 
brought sharply to the attention of the world. 
It was realized that a wireless set on a pas- 
senger-ship was necessary if the lives of the 

passengers were to be safeguarded. The 

221 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

United States Government by its laws now 
requires that passenger-ships shall be equipped 
with wireless apparatus in charge of a com- 
petent operator. 

One of the early objections made to the 
wireless was its apparent lack of secrecy, since 
any other receiving apparatus within range 
of the waves sent forth by the sending sta- 
tion can receive the signals. It was also 
realized that as soon as any considerable 
number of stations were established about the 
world, and began sending messages to and fro, 
there would be a perfect jumble of waves flying 
about in all directions through the ether, so 
that no messages could be sent or received. 

Marconi's answer to these difficulties was 
the tuning apparatus. The electric waves 
carrying the messages may be sent out at 
widely varying lengths. Marconi found that 
it was possible to adjust a receiving station 
so that it would receive only waves of a 
certain length. Thus stations which desired 
to communicate could select a certain wave- 
length, and they could send and receive mes- 
sages without interfering with others using 

222 




A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE OF THE CLIFDEN STATION 
WHILE MESSAGES WERE BEING SENT ACROSS TO CAPE RACE 

The camera was exposed for two hours, and the white bars show the sparks leaving 
the wires for their journey through the air for seventeen hundred miles. 





■ M i„ am 

m 




m 


I ■^■"Hm 


m* 




1 



MARCONI STATION AT CLIFDEN, IRELAND 
These dynamos send a message straight across the ocean. 



SERVING THE WORLD 

different wave-lengths, or without the receiv- 
ing station being confused by messages coming 
in from other stations using different wave- 
lengths. You know that when a tuning-fork 
is set in vibration another of the same pitch 
near it will vibrate with it, but others of 
different pitch will not be affected. The 
operation of wireless stations in time with 
each other is similar. 

An example of the value of tuning is af- 
forded by the manner in which press reports 
are sent from the great Marconi station at 
Poldhu. Each night at a certain hour this 
station sends out news reports of the events 
of the day, using a certain set wave-length. 
Each ship on the Atlantic and every land sta- 
tion within range which is to receive the re- 
ports at that hour adjusts its receiving set 
to receive waves of that length. In this way 
they hear nothing but the Poldhu news re- 
ports which they desire to receive, and are 
not troubled by messages from other stations 
within range. 

Secrecy is also attained by the use of 
tuning. It is possible that another station 

15 223 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

may discover the wave-length being used for 
a secret message and "listen in," but there 
are so many possible wave-lengths that this 
is difficult. Secrecy may also be secured by 
the use of code messages. 

Many of the advantages of tuning were lost 
by the international agreement which pro- 
vided that but two wave-lengths should be 
used for commercial work. This, however, 
enables ships to get in touch with other ships 
in time of need. With his telephone receivers 
the operator can hear the passage of the waves 
as they are brought to him by his aerial and 
the dots and dashes sound as buzzes of greater 
or less length. Out of the confusion of cur- 
rents passing through the air he can select 
the messages he wishes to read by sound. 

You may wonder how one wireless operator 
gets into communication with another. He 
first listens in to determine whether messages 
are coming through the ether within range in 
the wave-length he is to use. Hearing noth- 
ing, he adjusts his sending apparatus to the 
desired wave-length and switches this in with 

the signal aerial which serves both his sending 

224 



SERVING THE WORLD 

and his receiving set. This at the same time 
disconnects his receiving set. He sends out 
the call letters of the station to which he 
wishes to send a message, following them with 
his own call letters, as a signature to show 
who is calling. After repeating these signals 
several times he switches out his sending set 
and listens in with his receiving set. If he 
then gets an answer from the other station he 
can begin sending the message. 

Marconi was not allowed to hold the wire- 
less field unmolested. Many others set up 
wireless stations, some of them infringing upon 
Marconi's patents. Others have devised wire- 
less systems along more original lines. Par- 
ticularly we should mention two American 
experimenters, Dr. de Forest and Professor 
Fessenden. Both have established wireless 
systems with no little promise. The system of 
Professor Fessenden is especially unique and 
original and may be destined to work a revolu- 
tion in the methods of wireless telegraphy. 

With an increase in the number of wireless 

stations and varieties of apparatus came a 

wide increase in the uses to which wireless 

225 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

telegraphy was applied. We have already- 
noticed the press service from Poldhu. The 
British Government makes use of this same 
station to furnish daily news to its representa- 
tives in all parts of the world. The wireless 
is also used to transmit the time from the 
great observatories. 

Some of the railroads in the United States 
have equipped their trains as well as their 
stations with wireless sets. It has proved 
its worth in communicating between stations, 
taking the place in time of need of either the 
telegraph or the telephone. In equipping 
the trains with sets a difficulty was met in 
arranging the aerials. It is, of course, impos- 
sible to arrange the wires at any height above 
the cars, since they would be swept away in 
passing under bridges. Even with very low 
aerials, however, communication has been suc- 
cessfully maintained at a distance of over a 
hundred miles. The speed of the fastest train 
affects the sending and receiving of messages 
not at all. It was also found that messages 
passed without hindrance, even though the 

train was passing through a tunnel. 

226 



SERVING THE WORLD 

Another interesting application of wireless 
telegraphy is to the needs of the fire-fighters. 
Fire stations in New York City have been 
equipped with wireless telegraph sets, and 
they have proved so useful in spreading alarms 
and transmitting news of fires that they seem 
destined to come into universal use. 

The outbreak of the world war gave a tre- 
mendous impetus to the development of wire- 
less telegraphy. The German cable to the 
United States was cut in the early days of 
the conflict. The sending power of wireless 
stations had been sufficiently increased, how- 
ever, so that the great German stations could 
communicate with those in the United States. 
Communication was readily maintained be- 
tween the Allies by means of wireless, the 
great stations at Poldhu and at the Eiffel 
Tower in Paris being in constant communica- 
tion with each other and with the stations in 
Italy and in Russia. 

Portable field sets had been used with some 

slight success even in the Boer War, and had 

definitely proved their worth in the Balkans. 

The outbreak of the greater war found all of 

227 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

the nations equipped with portable apparatus 
for the use of their armies. These proved of 
great use. The field sets of the United States 
Army also proved their utility in the cam- 
paign into Mexico in pursuit of Villa. By 
their means it was possible for General 
Pershing's forces to keep in constant touch 
with the headquarters in the United States. 

The wireless proved as valuable to the 
navies as had been anticipated. The Germans 
in particular made great improvements in 
light wireless sets designed for use on air- 
craft. The problem of placing an aerial on 
an aeroplane is difficult, but no little headway 
has been made in this direction. 

It is the American boy who has done the 
most interesting work with the wireless in the 
United States. While the commercial devel- 
opment has been comparatively slow, the 
boys have set up stations by the thousands. 
Most of these stations were constructed by 
the boys themselves, who have learned and 
are learning how best to apply this modern 
wonder to the service of man. So many 
amateurs set up stations that the Government 

228 



SERVING THE WORLD 

found it necessary to regulate them by law. 
The law now requires that amateur experi- 
menters use only short wave-lengths in their 
sending, which will not interfere with mes- 
sages from Government or commercial sta- 
tions. It also provides for the licensing of 
amateurs who prove competent. 

The stations owned and operated by boys 
have already proved of great use. In times 
of storm and flood when wire communication 
failed they have proved the only means of 
communicating with many districts. In time 
of war these amateur stations, scattered in 
all parts of the country, might prove im- 
mensely valuable. Means have now' been 
taken to so organize the amateurs that they 
can communicate with one another, and by 
this means messages may be sent to any 
part of the country. 

One young American, John Hays Ham- 
mond, Jr., has applied the wireless in novel 
and interesting ways. By means of special 
apparatus mounted on a small boat he can 
by the means of a wireless station on shore 

start or stop the vessel, or steer it in any 

229 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

direction by his wireless control. He has 
applied the same system to the control of tor- 
pedoes. By this means a torpedo may be 
controlled after it has left the shore and may 
be directed in any direction as long as it is 
within sight. This invention may prove of 
incalculable benefit should America be at- 
tacked by a foreign power. 

What startling developments of wireless 
telegraphy lie still in the future we do not 
know. Marconi has predicted that wireless 
messages will circle the globe. "I believe," 
he has said, "that in the near future a wireless 
message will be sent from New York com- 
pletely around the world without relaying, 
and will be received by an instrument in the 
same office with the transmitter, in perhaps 
less time than Shakespeare's forty minutes." 

Not long ago the United States battle-ship 
Wyoming, lying off Cape Henry on the At- 
lantic coast, communicated with the San 
Diego at Guaymas, on the Pacific coast of 
Mexico. This distance, twenty-five hundred 
miles across land, shows that Marconi's predic- 
tion may be realized in the not distant future. 

230 



XIX 

SPEAKING ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

A New "Hello Boy" in Boston— Why the Boy Sought the Job 
—The Useful Things the Boy Found to Do— Young Carty 
and the Multiple Switchboard — Called to New York City — ■ 
He Quiets the Roaring Wires — Carty Made Engineer-in- 
Chief — Extending the Range of the Human Voice — New 
York Talks to San Francisco Over a Wire. 

IT seemed to many that the wireless tele- 
graph was to be the final word in the de- 
velopment of communication, but two strik- 
ing achievements coming in 191 5 proved this 
to be far from the case. While one group of 
scientists had given themselves to experi- 
mentation with the Hertzian waves which 
led to wireless telegraphy, other scientists and 
engineers were busily engaged in bringing the 
telephone to a perfection which would enable 
it to accomplish even more striking feats. 
These electrical pioneers did not work as 
individuals, but were grouped together as the 

engineering staff of the American Telephone 

231 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

and Telegraph Company. At their head was 
John J. Carty, and it was under his guiding 
genius that the great work was accomplished. 
John Carty is the American son of Irish 
parents. He was born in Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts, on April 14, 1861. His father was 
a gun -maker and an expert mechanic of 
marked intelligence and ingenuity who num- 
bered among his friends Howe, the creator of 
the sewing-machine. As a boy John Carty 
displayed the liveliest interest in things elec- 
trical. When the time came for him to go 
to school, physics was his favorite study. 
He showed himself to be possessed of a keen 
mind and an infinite capacity for work. To 
these advantages was added a good ele- 
mentary education. He was graduated from 
Cambridge Latin School, where he prepared 
for Harvard University. Before he could 
enter the university his eyesight failed, and 
the doctor forbade continuance of study. 
Many a boy would have been discouraged 
by this physical handicap which denied him 
complete scholastic preparation. But this 

boy was not the kind that gives up. He had 

232 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

been supplementing his school work in physics 
with experimentations upon his own behalf. 
Let us let Mr. Carty tell in his own words 
how he next occupied himself. 

I had often visited the shop of Thomas Hall, at 19 
Bromfield Street, and looked in the window. I went 
in from time to time, not to make large purchases, but 
mostly to make inquiries and to buy some blue vitriol, 
wire, or something of the kind. It was a store where 
apparatus was sold for experimentation in schools, and 
on Saturdays a number of Harvard and Institute of 
Technology professors could be found there. It was 
quite a rendezvous for the scientific men in those days, 
just the same as the Old Corner Bookstore at the corner 
of School and Washington Streets was a place where the 
literary men used to congregate. Don't think that I 
was an associate of these great scientists, but I was 
very much attracted to the atmosphere of that store. 
I wanted to get in and handle the apparatus. 

Finally it occurred to me that I would like to get 
into the business, somehow. But I did not have the 
courage to go in and ask them for a job. One day I was 
going by and saw a sign hanging out, "Boy Wanted." 
I was about nineteen, and really thought I was some- 
thing of a scientist, not exactly a boy. I was a boy, 
however. I walked by on one side of the street and then 
on the other, looking in, and finally the idea possessed 
me to go in and strike for that job. So I took down the 
sign, which was outside the window, put it under my 
arm, and went in and persuaded Tom Hall that I was 
the boy he wanted. 

He said, "When can you begin ?" I said, "Now." 
233 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

There was no talk of wages or duties. He said, "Take 
this package around to Earle & Prew's express and 
hurry back, as I have another errand for you to do." 
So I had to take a great, heavy box around to the 
express-office and get a receipt for it. I found, when 
Saturday night came around, that I had been engaged 
at the rate of fifty cents a day. I would have been glad 
to work for nothing. 

Well, I did not get near that apparatus in a hurry, 
not until the time came for fixing up the window. 
My first talk in regard to it had no reference to ser- 
vices in a scientific capacity on my part. I had rather 
hoped that the boss would come around and consult 
with me as to how to adjust the apparatus. But that 
was not it. He said: "John, clean out that window. 
Everything is full of dust, and be careful and don't 
break anything !" So I cleaned it out. I swept out the 
place, cleaned about there, did errands, mixed battery 
solutions, and got a great deal of experience there in one 
way or another. I did whatever there was to do and 
got a good deal of fun out of it, while becoming ac- 
quainted with the state of the art of that day. I got 
to know intimately all the different sorts of philosoph- 
ical apparatus there were, and how to mix the various 
battery solutions. In fact, I became really quite experi- 
enced for those times in such matters. 

It was not long before young Carty lost 
his job. Being a regular boy, he had been 
guilty of too much skylarking. This experi- 
ence steadied him, and he forthwith sought 
a new job. He had met some of the em- 

234 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

ployees of the telephone company and was 
naturally interested in their work. At that 
time " hello boys" held sway in the crude 
telephone exchanges, the ''hello girl" having 
not yet appeared. So John Carty at the 
age of nineteen went to work in the Boston 
telephone exchange. 

The switchboard at which they placed him 
had been good enough for the other boys 
who had been called upon to operate it, and 
indeed it represented the best thought and 
effort of the leaders in the telephone world. 
But it did not satisfy Carty, who, not content 
with simply operating the board, studied its 
construction and began planning improve- 
ments. As Mr. Carty himself puts it: 

The little switchboards of that day were a good deal 
like the automobiles of some years ago — one was likely 
to spend more time under the switchboard than sitting 
at it ! In that way I learned a great deal about the ar- 
rangement and construction of switchboards. Encoun- 
tering the trouble first, I had an advantage over 
others in being able to suggest a remedy. So I have 
always thought it was a good thing to have troubles, as 
long as they are not too serious or too numerous. 
Troubles are certainly a great advantage, if we manage 
them correctly. 

235 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Certainly Carty made these switchboard 
troubles the first stepping-stone in his climb 
to the top in the field of telephone engineering. 
The improvements which the youngster sug- 
gested were so valuable that they were soon 
being made under his direction, and ere long 
he installed in the Boston exchange the first 
multiple switchboard, the fundamental fea- 
tures of which are in the switchboards of 
to-day. In his work with the switchboards 
young Carty early got in touch with Charles 
E. Scribner, another youngster who was doing 
notable work in this field. The young men 
became fast friends and worked much to- 
gether. Scribner devoted himself almost ex- 
clusively to switchboards and came to be 
known as the father of the modern switch- 
board. 

Boston had her peculiar problems and an 
1 ' express ' ' service was needed. How to handle 
this in the exchange was another problem, 
and this, too, Carty solved. For this purpose 
he designed and installed the first metallic 
circuit, multiple switchboard to go into ser- 
vice. The problems of the exchange were 

236 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

among the most serious of the many which 
troubled the early telephone companies. Of 
course every telephone - user desired to be 
able to converse with any other who had a 
telephone in his office or residence. The de- 
velopment of the switchboards had been 
comparatively slow in the past, and the ser- 
vice rendered by the boys proved far from 
satisfactory. The average boy proved him- 
self too little amenable to discipline, too in- 
clined to "sass" the telephone-users, and too 
careless. But the early use of "hello boys" 
was at least a success for the telephone in 
that it brought to its service John J. Carty. 
This boy pointed the way to the great im- 
provements that made it possible to handle 
the constantly growing volume of calls ex- 
peditiously and effectively. 

The early telephones were operated with a 
single wire grounded at either end, the earth 
return being used to complete the circuit as 
with the telegraph. But while the currents 
used to operate the telegraph are fairly strong 
and so can dominate the earth currents, the 
tiny currents which represented the vibrations 

237 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

of the human voice were all too often drowned 
by the earth currents which strayed on to the 
lines. Telephone engineers were not then 
agreed that this caused the difficulty; but 
they did know there was difficulty. Many 
weird noises played over the lines and as 
often as not the spoken word was twisted into 
the strangest gibberish and rendered unin- 
telligible. If the telephone was to satisfy its 
patrons and prove of real service to the world, 
the difficulty had to be overcome. Some of 
the more progressive engineers insisted that a 
double-wire system without a ground was 
necessary. This, of course, involved tremen- 
dous expenses in rebuilding every line and 
duplicating every wire. The more conserva- 
tive hesitated, but Carty forged ahead. 

In 1880 he was engaged in operating a 
new line out of Boston. He was convinced 
that the double-wire system alone could be 
successful, and he arranged to operate a line 
on this plan. Taking two single lines, he in- 
structed the operator at the other end to 
join them, forming a two-wire circuit. The 
results justified him. At last a line had been 

238 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

attained which could be depended upon to 
carry the conversation. 

No sooner was one problem solved than 
another presented itself. What to do with the 
constantly increasing number of wires was a 
pressing difficulty. All telephone circuits had 
been strung overhead, and with the demand 
for telephones for office and residence rapidly 
increasing, the streets of the great cities were 
becoming a perfect forest of telephone poles, 
with the sky obscured by a maze of wires. 
Poles were constantly increased in height until 
a line was strung along Wall Street in New 
York City at a height of ninety feet. From 
the poles the wires overflowed to the house- 
tops, increasing the difficulty of the engineers. 
How to protect the wires so that they could 
be placed underground was the problem. 

We have noticed that Theodore Vail had 
been brought to the head of the Bell system 
in its infancy and had led the fight against 
the rival companies until it was thoroughly 
established. Now he was directing his genius 
and executive ability to so improving the 
telephone that it should serve every need of 

16 239 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

communication. While the engineers dis- 
cussed theories Vail began actual tests. A 
trench five miles long was dug beside a rail- 
way track by the simple expedient of hitching 
a plow to a locomotive. In this trench were 
laid a number of wires, each with a different 
covering. The gutta-percha and the rubber 
coverings which had been used in cable con- 
struction predominated. It was found that 
these wires would carry the telephone cur- 
rents, not as well as might be desired, but 
well enough to assure Vail that he was on the 
right track. The companies began to place 
their wires underground, and Vail saw to it 
that the experiments with coverings for tele- 
phone wires were continued. The result was 
the successful underground cables in use to- 
day. 

At the same time Vail and his engineers 
were seeking to improve the wires themselves. 
Iron and steel wires had been used, but they 
proved unsatisfactory, as they rusted and 
were poor conductors. Copper was an excel- 
lent conductor, but the metal in the pure state 

is soft and no one then knew how to make a 

240 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

copper wire that would sustain its own weight. 
But Vail kept his men at the problem and the 
hard-drawn copper wire was at length evolved. 
This proved just what was needed for the 
telephone circuits. The copper wire was four 
times as expensive as the iron, but as it was 
four times as good Vail adopted it. 

John Carty had rather more than kept pace 
with these improvements. He was but twenty- 
six years of age when Union N. Bethell, head 
of the New York company, picked Carty to 
take charge of the telephone engineering work 
in the metropolis. Bethell was Vail's chief 
executive officer, and under him Carty re- 
ceived an invaluable training in executive 
work. Carty's largest task was putting the 
wires underground, and here again he was a 
tremendous success. He found ways to make 
cables cheaper and better, and devised means 
of laying them at half the former cost. Hav- 
ing solved the most pressing problems in this 
field, his employers, who had come to recog- 
nize his marked genius, set him to work again 
on the switchboard. He was placed in charge 

of the switchboard department of the West- 

241 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

ern Electric Company, the concern which 
manufactures the apparatus for the telephone 
company. The switchboard, as we have seen, 
was Carty's first love, and again he pointed 
the way to great improvements. Most of the 
large switchboards of that time were installed 
under his direction, and they were better 
switchboards than had ever been known before. 

Up to this time it had been thought neces- 
sary to have individual batteries supplying 
current to each line. These were a constant 
source of difficulty, and Carty directed his 
own attention, and that of his associate engi- 
neers, to finding a satisfactory solution. He 
sought a method of utilizing one common 
battery at the central station and the way 
was found and the improvement accomplished. 

Though the telephone circuits were now 
protected from the earth, telephone-users, 
at times when the lines were busy, were still 
troubled with roarings and strange cross- 
talk. Though busy with the many engineer- 
ing problems which the telephone heads had 
assigned to him, Carty found time for some 

original research. He showed that the roar- 

242 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

ings in the wires were largely caused by elec- 
tro-static induction. In 1889 he read a paper 
before the Electric Club that startled the 
engineers of that day. He demonstrated 
that in every telephone circuit there is a 
particular point at which, if a telephone is 
inserted, no cross-talk can be heard. He had 
worked out the rules for determining this 
point. Thus he had at once discovered the 
trouble and prescribed the cure. Of course it 
could not be expected that the sage experts 
would all agree with young Carty right away; 
but they were forced to in the end, for again 
he was proved right. 

By 1 90 1 Carty was ready with another in- 
vention which was to place the telephone in 
the homes of hundreds of thousands who, 
without it, could scarcely have afforded this 
modern necessity. This was the " bridging 
bell" which made possible the party line. 
By its use four telephones could be placed 
on a single line, each with its own signal, so 
that any one could be rung without ringing 
the others. Its introduction inaugurated a 
new boom in the use of the telephone. 

243 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Theodore Vail had resigned from his posi- 
tions with the telephone companies in 1890 
with the determination to retire from busi- 
ness. But when the panic of 1907 came the 
directors of the company went to him on his 
Vermont farm and pleaded with him to return 
and again resume the leadership. Other and 
younger men would not do in this business 
crisis. They also pointed out that the na- 
tion's telephones had not yet been molded 
into the national system which had been his 
dream — a system of universal service in which 
any one at any point in the country might 
talk by telephone with any other. So Vail 
re-entered the telephone field and again took 
the presidency of the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company. 

One of his first official acts was to appoint 

John J. Carty his chief engineer. Vail had 

selected the right man to make his dreams 

come true ; Carty now had the executive who 

would make it possible for him to accomplish 

even larger things. He set about building 

up the engineering organization which was to 

accomplish the work, selecting the most brill- 

244 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

iant graduates of American technical schools. 
He set this organization to work upon the 
extension and development of the long-dis- 
tance telephone lines. 

As a "hello boy" Carty had believed in the 
possibility of the long-distance telephone 
when others had scoffed. He has told of an 
early experience while in the Boston exchange: 

One hot day an old lady toiled up the inevitable 
flights of stairs which led to the telephone-office of 
those times. Out of breath, she sat down, and when 
she had recovered sufficiently to speak she said she 
wanted to talk to Chicago. My colleagues of that time 
were all what the ethnologists would rank a little bit 
lower than the wild Indian. These youngsters set up a 
great laugh; and, indeed, the absurdity of the old 
lady's project could hardly be overstated, because at 
that time Salem was a long-distance line, Lowell some- 
times worked, and Worcester was the limit — that is, in 
every sense of the word. The Lowell line was so un- 
reliable that we had a telegraph operator there, and 
when the talk was not possible, he pushed the message 
through by Morse. It is no wonder that the absurdity 
of the old lady's proposal was the cause of poorly sup- 
pressed merriment. But I can remember that I 
explained to her that our wires had not yet been ex- 
tended to Chicago, and that, after she had departed, I 
turned to the other operators and said that the day 
would come when we could talk to Chicago. My 
prophecy was received with what might be called — 

245 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

putting it mildly — vociferous discourtesy. Neverthe- 
less, I remember very well the impression which that 
old lady's request made upon me; and I really did 
believe that, some day or other, in some way, we would 
be able to talk to Chicago. 

By 19 1 2 it was possible to talk from New 
York to Denver, a distance of 2,100 miles. 
No European engineers had achieved any 
such results, and this feat brought to Carty 
and his wonderful staff the admiration of 
foreign experts. But for the American engi- 
neers this was only a starting-point. 

The next step was to link New York and 
California. This was more than a matter of 
setting poles and stringing wires, stupendous 
though this task was. The line crosses thir- 
teen States, and is carried on 130,000 poles. 
Three thousand tons of wire are used in the 
line. The Panama Canal took nine years to 
complete, and cost over three hundred million 
dollars; but within that time the telephone 
company spent twice that amount in engi- 
neering construction work alone, extending 
the scope of the telephone. 

The technical problems were even more 

difficult. Carty and his engineers had to 

246 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

find a way to send something three thousand 
miles with the breath as its motive power. It 
was a problem of the conservation of the 
tiny electric current which carried the speech. 
The power could not be augmented or speech 
would not result at the destination. 

Added to the efforts of these able engi- 
neers was the work of Prof. Michael I. Pupin, 
of Columbia University, whose brilliant in- 
vention of the loading coil some ten years 
before had startled the scientific world and 
had increased the range of telephonic trans- 
mission through underground cables and 
through overhead wires far beyond what had 
formerly been possible. Professor Pupin ap- 
plied his masterful knowledge of physics and 
his profound mathematical attainments so 
successfully to the practical problems of the 
transmission of telephone speech that he has 
been called "the telephone scientist/ ' It is 
impossible to talk over long-distance lines 
anywhere in America without speaking 
through Pupin coils, which are distributed 
throughout the hundreds of thousands of 
miles of wire covering the North American 

247 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

continent. In the transcontinental telephone 
line Pupin coils play a most important part, 
and they are distributed at eight-mile inter- 
vals throughout its entire length from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. In speaking at a 
dinner of eminent scientists, Mr. Carty once 
said that on account of his distinguished scien- 
tific attainments and wonderful telephonic 
inventions, Professor Pupin would rank in his- 
tory alongside of Bell himself. 

We have seen how Alexander Graham Bell, 
standing in the little room in Boston, spoke 
through the crude telephone he had con- 
structed the first words ever carried over a 
wire, and how these words were heard and 
understood by his associate, Thomas Watson. 
This was in 1876, and it was in January of 
19 1 5 — less than forty years later — that these 
two men talked across the continent. The 
transcontinental line was complete. Bell in 
the offices of the company in New York 
talked freely with Watson in San Francisco, 
and all in the most conversational tone, with- 
out a trace of the difficulty that had attended 

their first conversation over the short line. 

248 



ACROSS THE CONTINENT 

Thus, within the span of a single life the 
telephone had been developed from a crude 
instrument which transmitted speech with 
difficulty over a wire a hundred feet long, until 
one could be heard perfectly, though over 
three thousand miles of wire intervened. 

The spoken word travels across the conti- 
nent almost instantaneously, far faster than 
the speed of sound. If it were possible for 
one to be heard in San Francisco as he 
shouted from New York through the air, four 
hours would be required before the sound 
would arrive. Thus the telephone has been 
brought to a point of perfection where it 
carries sound by electricity and reproduces it 
again far more rapidly and efficiently than 
sound can be transmitted through its natural 
medium. 



XX 

TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

The Search for the Wireless Telephone — Early Successes — 
Carty and His Assistants Seek the Wireless Telephone — The 
Task Before Them — De Forest's Amplifier — Experimental 
Success Achieved — The Test — Honolulu and Paris Hear 
Arlington — The Future. 

NO sooner had Marconi placed the wireless 
telegraph at the service of the world 
than men of science of all nations began the 
search for the wireless telephone. But the 
vibrations necessary to reproduce the sound 
of the human voice are so infinitely more com- 
plex than those which will suffice to carry 
signals representing the dots and dashes of 
the telegraph code that the problem long 
defied solution. Scientists attacked the prob- 
lem with vigor, and various means of wireless 
telephony were developed, without any being 
produced which were effective over sufficient 

ranges to make them really useful. 

250 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

Probably the earliest medium chosen to 
carry wireless speech was light rays. A micro- 
phone transmitter was arranged so that the 
vibrations of the voice would affect the 
stream of gas flowing in a sensitive burner. 
The flame was thus thrown into vibrations 
corresponding to the vibrations of sound. The 
rays from this flame were then directed by 
mirrors to a distant receiving station and 
there concentrated on a photo-electric sele- 
nium cell, which has the strange property of 
varying its resistance according to the illu- 
mination. Thus a telephone receiver ar- 
ranged in series with it was made to reproduce 
the sounds. 

This strange, wireless telephone was so ar- 
ranged that a search-light beam could be used 
for the light path, and distances up to three 
miles were covered. Even with this limited 
range the search -light telephone had certain 
advantages. Its message could be received 
only by those in the direct line of the light. 
Neither did it require aerial masts or wires 
and a trained telegrapher who could send and 
receive the telegraph code. It was put to 

251 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

some use between battle-ships and smaller 
craft lying within a radius of a few miles. 
The sensitive selenium cell proved unreliable, 
however, and this means of communication 
was destined to failure. 

The experimenters realized that future suc- 
cess lay in making the ether carry telephonic 
currents as it carried telegraphic currents. 
They succeeded in establishing communication 
without wires, using the same antenna as in 
wireless telegraphy, and the principles deter- 
mined are those used in the wireless telephone 
of to-day. The sending apparatus was so 
arranged that continuous oscillations are set 
up in the ether, either by a high-frequency 
machine or from an electric arc. Where set up 
by spark discharges the spark frequency must 
be above twenty thousand per second. This 
unbroken wave train does not affect the 
telephone and is not audible in a telephone 
receiver inserted in the radio receiving circuit. 
But when a microphone transmitter is in- 
serted in the sending circuit, instead of the 
make-and-break key used for telegraphy, the 

waves of the voice, thrown against the trans- 

252 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

mitter in speaking, break up the waves so 
that the telephone receiver in the receiving 
circuit will reproduce sound. Here was and 
is the wireless telephone. Marconi and many- 
other scientists were able to operate it suc- 
cessfully over comparatively short distances, 
and were busily engaged in extending its 
range and improving the apparatus. One 
great difficulty involved was in increasing the 
power of the sending apparatus. . Greater 
range has been secured in wireless telegraphy 
by using stronger sending currents. But the 
delicate microphone would not carry these 
stronger currents. Increased sensitiveness in 
the receiving apparatus was also necessary. 

Not content with their accomplishments in 
increasing the scope of the wire telephone, 
the engineers of the Bell organization, headed 
by John J. Carty, turned their attention to 
the wireless transmission of speech. Deter- 
mined that the existing telephone system 
should be extended and supplemented in 
every useful way, they attacked the problem 
with vigor. It was a problem that had long 
baffled the keenest of European scientists, in- 

253 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

eluding Marconi himself, but that did not de- 
ter Carty and his associates. They were deter- 
mined that the glory of spanning the Atlantic 
by wireless telephone should come to America 
and American engineers. They wanted his- 
tory to record the wireless telephone as an 
American achievement along with the tele- 
graph and the telephone. 

The methods used in achieving the wireless 
telephone were widely different from those 
which brought forth the telegraph and the 
telephone. Times had changed. Men had 
found that it was more effective to work to- 
gether through organizations than to struggle 
along as individuals. The very physical scope 
of the undertakings made the old methods 
impracticable. One cannot perfect a trans- 
continental telephone line nor a transatlantic 
wireless telephone in a garret. And with a 
powerful organization behind them it was not 
necessary for Carty and his associates to 
starve and skimp through interminable years, 
handicapped by the inadequate equipment, 
while they slowly achieved results. This great 
organization, working with modern methods, 

254 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

produced the most wonderful results with 
startling rapidity. 

Important work had already been done by 
Marconi, Fessenden, De Forest, and others. 
But their results were still incomplete; they 
could not talk for any considerable distance. 
Carty organized his staff with care, Bancroft 
Gerhardi, Doctor Jewett, H. D. Arnold, and 
Colpitts being prominent among the group of 
brilliant American scientists who joined with 
Carty in his great undertaking. While much 
had been accomplished, much still remained 
to be done, and the various contributions had 
to be co-ordinated into a unified, workable 
whole. In large part it was Carty's task to 
direct the work of this staff and to see that 
all moved smoothly and in the right direction. 
Just as the telephone was more complex than 
the telegraph, and the wireless telegraph than 
the telephone, so the apparatus used in wire- 
less telephony is even more complex and 
technical. Working with the intricate mechan- 
isms and delicate apparatus, one part after 
another was improved and adapted to the 
task at hand. 
17 255 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

To the devices of Carty and his associates 
was added the extremely delicate detector 
that was needed. This was the invention of 
Dr. Lee de Forest, an American inventor 
and a graduate of the Sheffield Technical 
School of Yale University. De Forest's con- 
tribution was a lamp instrument, a three- 
step audion amplifier. This is to the wireless 
telephone what the coherer is to the wireless 
telegraph. It is so delicate that the faintest 
currents coming through the ether will stimu- 
late it and serve to set in motion local sources 
of electrical energy so that the waves received 
are magnified to a point where they will pro- 
duce sound. 

By the spring of 191 5, but a few months 

after the transcontinental telephone line had 

been put in operation, Carty had his wireless 

telephone apparatus ready for extended tests. 

A small experimental tower was set up at 

Montauk Point, Long Island, and another was 

borrowed at Wilmington, Delaware. The 

tests were successful, and the experimenters 

found that they could talk freely with each 

other. Soon they talked over a thousand 

256 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

miles, from the tower at Montauk Point to 
another at St. Simon's Island, Georgia. This 
in itself was a great achievement, but the 
world was not told of it. " Do it first and then 
talk about it*' is the maxim with Theodore 
Vail and his telephone men. This was but a 
beginning, and Carty had far more wonderful 
things in mind. 

It was on the 29th of September, 191 5, that 
Carty conducted the demonstrations which 
thrilled the world and showed that wireless 
telephony was an accomplished fact. Sitting 
in his" office in New York, President Theodore 
Vail spoke into his desk telephone of the 
familiar type. The wires carried his words to 
the towers of the Navy wireless station at 
Arlington, Virginia, where they were delivered 
to the sending apparatus of the wireless tele- 
phone. Leaping into space, they traveled in 
every direction through the ether. The an- 
tenna of the wireless station at Mare Island, 
California, caught part of the waves and they 
were amplified so that John Carty, sitting with 
his ear to the receiver, could hear the voice 
of his chief. Carty and his associates had not 

257 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

only developed a system which made it pos- 
sible to talk across the continent without 
wires, but they had made it possible to com- 
bine wire and wireless telegraphy. He and 
Vail talked with each other freely and easily, 
while the naval officers who verified the tests 
marveled. 

But even more wonderful things were to 
come. Early in the morning of the next day 
other messages were sent from the Arlington 
tower, and these messages were heard by 
Lloyd Espenschied, one of Carty's engineers, 
who was stationed at the wireless station at 
Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu, Hawaii. The 
distance covered was nearly five thousand 
miles, and half of it was across land, which is 
the more remarkable as the wireless does not 
operate so readily over land as over water. 
The distance covered in this test was greater 
than the distance from Washington to Lon- 
don, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or Petrograd. The 
successful completion of this test meant that 
the capitals of tRe great nations of the world 
might communicate, might talk with one 

another, by wireless telephone. Only a r§- 

258 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

ceiving set had been installed at Hawaii, so 
that it was not possible for Espenschied to 
reply to the message from Arlington, and it 
was not until his message came by cable that 
those at Arlington knew that the words they 
had spoken had traveled five thousand miles. 
Other receiving sets had been located at San 
Diego and at Darien on the Isthmus of 
Panama, and at these points also the words 
were distinctly heard. 

By the latter part of October all was in 
readiness for a transatlantic test, and on the 
20th of October American engineers, with 
American apparatus installed at the great 
French station at the Eiffel Tower, Paris, 
heard the words spoken at Arlington, Virginia. 
Carty and his engineers had bridged the 
Atlantic for the spoken word. Because of 
war-time conditions it was not possible to 
secure the use of the French station for an 
extended test, but the fact was established 
that once the apparatus is in place telephonic 
communication between Europe and Amer- 
ica may be carried on regularly. 

The apparatus used as developed by the 
259 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

engineers of the Bell system was in a measure 
an outgrowth of their work with the long- 
distance telephone. Wireless telephony, de- 
spite the wonders it has already accomplished, 
is still in its infancy. With more perfect 
apparatus and the knowledge that comes with 
experience we may expect that speech will 
girdle the earth. 

It is natural that one should wonder 
whether the wireless telephone is destined to 
displace our present apparatus. This does 
not seem at all probable. In the first place, 
wireless telephony is now, and probably al- 
ways will be, very expensive. Where the 
wire will do it is the more economical. There 
are many limitations to the use of the ether 
for talking purposes, and it cannot be drawn 
upon too strongly by the man of science. It 
will accomplish miracles, but must not be 
overtaxed. Millions of messages going in all 
directions, crossing and recrossing one an- 
other, as is done every day by wire, are 
probably an impossibility by wireless teleph- 
ony. Weird and little-understood condi- 
tions of the ether, static electricity, radio 

260 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

disturbances, make wireless work uncertain, 
and such a thing as twenty-four-hour service, 
seven days in the week, can probably never 
be guaranteed. In radio communication all 
must use a common medium, and as its use 
increases, so also do the difficulties. The 
privacy of the wire is also lacking with the 
wireless telephone. 

But because a way was found to couple the 
wireless telephone with the wire telephone, 
the new wonder has great possibilities as a 
supplement to our existing system. Before so 
veryTong it may be possible for an American 
business man sitting in his office to call up and 
converse with a friend on a liner crossing the 
Atlantic. The advantages of speaking be- 
tween ship and ship as an improvement over 
wireless telegraphy in time of need are obvious. 

A demonstration of the part this great 

national telephone system would play in the 

country's defense in case of attack was held 

in May of 1916. The Navy Department at 

Washington was placed in communication 

with every navy-yard and post in the United 

States, so that the executive officers could 

261 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

instantly talk with those in charge of the posts 
throughout the country. The wireless tele- 
phone was used in addition to the long dis- 
tance, and Secretary of the Navy Daniels, 
sitting at his desk at Washington, talked with 
Captain Chandler, who was at his station 
on the bridge of the U.S.S. New Hampshire 
at Hampton Roads. 

Whatever the future limitations of wireless 
telephony, there is no doubt as to the place it 
will take among the scientific accomplish- 
ments of the age. Merely as a scientific dis- 
covery or invention, it ranks among the won- 
ders of civilization. Much as the tremendous 
leap of human voice across the line from 
New York to San Francisco appealed to the 
mind, there is something infinitely more fasci- 
nating in this new triumph of the engineer. 
The human mind can grasp the idea of the 
spoken word being carried along wires, though 
that is difficult enough, but when we try to 
understand its flight through space we are 
faced with something beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the layman and almost past belief. 

We have seen how communication has de- 
262 



TELEPHONING THROUGH SPACE 

veloped, very slowly at first, and then, as 
electricity was discovered, with great rapidity 
until man may converse with man at a dis- 
tance of five thousand miles. What the future 
will bring forth we do not know. The ether 
may be made to accomplish even more won- 
derful things as a bearer of intelligence. 
Though we cannot now see how it would be 
possible, the day may come when every auto- 
mobile and aeroplane will be equipped with 
its wireless telephone, and the motorist and 
aviator, wherever they go, may talk with any- 
one anywhere. The transmission of power by 
wireless is confidently predicted. Pictures 
have been transmitted by telegraph. It may 
be possible to transmit them by wireless. 
Then some one may find out how to transmit 
moving pictures through the ether. Then one 
might sit and see before him on a screen a 
representation of what was then happening 
thousands of miles away, and, listening through 
a telephone, hear all the sounds at the same 
place. Wonders that we cannot even now 
imagine may lie before us. 



APPENDIX A 



NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TELEGRAPH 

By F. W. Lienau, Superintendent Tariff Bureau, Western Union 
Telegraph Company 

THE invention of Samuel F. B. Morse 
is unique in this, that the methods and 
instruments of telegraph operation as he 
evolved them from his first experimental ap- 
paratus were so simple, and yet so completely 
met the requirements, that they have con- 
tinued in use to the present day in practically 
their original form. But this does not mean 
that there has not been the same constant 
striving for betterment in this as in every 
other art. Many minds have, since the birth 
of the telegraph, occupied themselves with the 
problem of devising improved means of tele- 
graphic transmission. The results have varied 
according to the point of view from which the 

subject was approached, but all, directly or 

264 



APPENDIX A 

indirectly, sought the same goal (the obvious 
one, since speed is the essence of telegraphy), 
to find the best means of sending more mes- 
sages over the wire in a given time. It will 
readily suggest itself that the solution of this 
problem lies either in an arrangement enabling 
the wire to carry more than one message at 
once, or in some apparatus capable of trans- 
mitting messages over the wire more rapidly 
than can be done by hand, or in a combination 
of both these principles. 

Duplex and quadruplex operations are per- 
haps the most generally known methods by 
which increased utilization of the capacity of 
the line has been achieved. Duplex operation 
permits of the sending of two messages over 
one wire in opposite directions at the same 
time; and quadruplex, the simultaneous trans- 
mission of four messages, two going in each 
direction. Truly a remarkable accomplish- 
ment; but, like many other things that have 
found their permanent place in daily use, 
become so familiar that we no longer pause to 
marvel at it. These expedients constitute a 

direct and very effective attack on the prob- 

265 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

lem how to get more work out of the wire 
with the existing means of operation, and on 
account of their fundamental character and 
the important place which by reason thereof 
they have taken in the telegraphic art, are 
entitled to first mention. 

The problem of increasing the rapidity of 
transmission has been met by various auto- 
matic systems of telegraphy, so called because 
they embody the idea of mechanical trans- 
mission with resulting gain in speed and other 
advantages. The number of these which have 
from time to time been devised is consider- 
able. Not all have proven to be practicable, 
but those which have failed to prove in.under 
actual operating conditions none the less dis- 
play evidence of ingenuity which may well 
excite our admiration. 

To mention one or two which may be inter- 
esting on account of the oddity of their 
method — there was, for instance, an early de- 
vice, similar in principle to the calling appa- 
ratus of the automatic telephone, which in- 
volved the turning of a movable disk so that 
a projection on its circumference pointed 

266 



APPENDIX A 

successively to the letters to be transmitted. 
Experiments were made with ordinary metal 
type set up in a composing-stick, a series of 
brushes passing over the type faces and pro- 
ducing similar characters on a tape at the 
other end of the line. In another more recent 
ingenious device a pivoted mirror at the re- 
ceiving end was so manipulated by the elec- 
trical impulses that a ray of light reflected 
from the surface of the mirror actually wrote 
the message upon sensitized paper, like a 
pencil, in a fair handwriting. In another the 
receiving apparatus printed vertical, hori- 
zontal, and slanting lines in such manner that 
they combined to make letters, rather angular, 
it is true, but legible. 

These and other kinared devices are inter- 
esting as efforts to accomplish the direct pro- 
duction of legible messages. In experimental 
tests they performed their function success- 
fully, and in some cases with considerable 
speed, but some of them required more than 
one line wire, some were too sensitive to dis- 
turbance by inductive currents and some de- 
veloped other weaknesses which have pre- 

267 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

vented their incorporation in the actual op- 
erating machinery of to-day. 

In the general development of the so-called 
automatic telegraph devices which have been 
or now are in practical operation, two lines 
have been pursued. One involves direct key- 
board transmission; the other, the use at the 
sending end of a perforated tape capable of 
being run through a transmitting machine at 
high speed. One type of the former is the so- 
called step-by-step process, in which a revolv- 
ing body in the transmitting apparatus, as, 
for instance, a cylinder provided with pegs 
placed at intervals around its circumference in 
spiral fashion, is arrested by the depression 
of the keys of the keyboard in such a way that 
a type wheel in the receiving apparatus at the 
distant end of the line prints the correspond- 
ing letter. This method was employed in the 
House and Phelps printing telegraphs oper- 
ated by the Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany in its earlier days, and is to-day used in 
the operation of the familiar ticker. In an- 
other type of direct keyboard operation the 

manipulation of the keys transmits the im- 

268 



APPENDIX A 

pulses directiy to the line and the receiving 
apparatus translates them by electrically con- 
trolled mechanical devices into printed char- 
acters in message form. 

The systems best adapted to rapid tele- 
graph work are predicated on the use of a 
perforated tape on which, by means of a 
suitable perforating apparatus, little round 
holes are produced in various groupings, each 
group, when the tape is passed through the 
transmitter, causing a certain combination of 
electrical impulses to pass over the wire. The 
transmitter as a rule consists of a mechanically 
or motor driven mechanism which causes the 
telegraph impulses to be transmitted to the 
line, and the combination and character of the 
impulses are determined by the tape perfora- 
tions. The rapidity with which the tape may 
be driven through the transmitter makes very 
high speed operation possible. Of course it is 
necessary that there should be at the other 
end of the wire apparatus capable of receiving 
and recording the signals as speedily as they 
are sent. 

As early as 1848 Alexander Bain perfected 
269 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

a system involving the use of the perforated 
transmitting tape ; at the receiving station the 
messages were recorded in dots and dashes 
upon a chemically prepared strip of paper by 
means of iron pens, the metal of which was, 
through the combined action of the electrical 
current and the chemical preparation, decom- 
posed, producing black marks in the form of 
dots and dashes upon the paper. The Bain 
apparatus was in actual operation in the 
younger days of the telegraph. Various sys- 
tems, based on similar principles, involving 
tape transmission and the production of dots 
and dashes on a receiving tape, have from 
time to time been devised, but have generally 
not succeeded in establishing any permanent 
usefulness in competition with more effective 
instrumentalities which have been perfected. 

The hardiest survivor of them is the Wheat- 
stone apparatus, which has been in successful 
operation for years. Originally the perforating 
— or, to use the commonly current term, the 
punching — of the Wheatstone sending tape 
was accomplished by a mechanism equipped 

with three keys — one for the dot, one for the 

270 



APPENDIX A 

dash, and one for the space. The keys were 
struck with rubber-tipped mallets held in the 
hands of the operator and brought down with 
considerable force. Later this rather primitive 
perforator was supplanted by one equipped 
with a full keyboard on the order of a type- 
writer keyboard. At the receiving end of the 
line the messages are produced on a tape in 
dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet, and 
hence a further process of translation is neces- 
sary. This system has proven very useful, 
particularly in times of wire trouble and scar- 
city- of facilities, when it is essential to move 
as many messages as possible over the avail- 
able lines. 

The schemes devised for combining auto- 
matic transmission by the perforated-tape 
method with direct production of the message 
at its destination in ordinary letters and fig- 
ures, eliminating the intervening step of trans- 
lation from Morse characters, have been 
many. Their individual enumeration is be- 
yond the scope of the present discussion, and 
would in any event involve a wearisome expo- 
sition of their distinguishing technical features. 

18 271 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Several of these systems are at present in 
practical and very effective operation. 

One of the forerunners of the printing tele- 
graph systems now in use was the Bucking- 
ham system, for many years employed by the 
Western Union Telegraph Company, but 
now for some time obsolete. The receiving 
mechanism of this system printed the mes- 
sages on telegraph blanks placed upon a 
cylinder of just the right circumference to 
accommodate two telegraph blanks. The 
blanks were arranged in pairs, rolled into the 
form of a tube and placed around the cylinder. 
When two messages had been written a new 
pair of blanks had to be substituted. This was 
a rather awkward arrangement, but at a time 
when more highly developed apparatus had 
not been perfected it served its purpose to 
good advantage. 

The printing telegraphs of to-day produce 
their messages by the direct operation of type- 
writing machines or mechanisms operating 
substantially in the same manner as the 
ordinary typewriting machine. The methods 

by which the electrical impulses coming over 

272 



APPENDIX A 

the line are transformed into mechanical op- 
eration of the typewriter keys, or what corre- 
sponds to the typewriter keys, vary. It would 
be difficult to describe how this function is 
performed without entering upon much detail 
of a highly technical character. Suffice it to 
say that means have been devised by which 
each combination of electrical impulses com- 
ing over the line wire causes a channel to be 
opened for the motor operation of the type- 
writing key-bar operating the corresponding 
letter upon the typewriter apparatus. These 
machines write the messages with proper ar- 
rangement of the date line, address, text, and 
signature, operating not only the type, but 
also the carriage shift and the line spacing as 
required. A further step in advance has been 
made by feeding the blanks into the receiving 
typewriter from a continuous roll, an attend- 
ant tearing the messages off as they are com- 
pleted. The entire operation is automatic 
from beginning to end and capable of con- 
siderable speed. 

There remained the problem of devising 
some means by which a number of automatic 

273 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

units could be operated over the same line at 
the same time. This is not by any means a 
new proposition. Here again various solutions 
have been offered by the scientists both of 
Europe and of this country, and different 
systems designed to accomplish the desired 
object have been placed in operation. One of 
the most recent, and we believe the most 
efficient so far developed, is the so-called 
multiplex printer system, devised by the engi- 
neers of the Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany and now being extensively used by that 
company. Perhaps the best picture of what 
is accomplished by this system can be given 
by an illustration. Let us assume a single 
wire between New York and Chicago. At the 
New York end there are connected with this 
wire four combined perforators and trans- 
mitters, and four receiving machines operating 
on the typewriter principle. At the Chicago 
end the wire is connected with a like num- 
ber of sending and receiving machines. All 
these machines are in simultaneous operation ; 
that is to say, four messages are being sent 
from New York to Chicago, and four messages 

274 



APPENDIX A 

are being sent from Chicago to New York, all 
at the same time and over a single wire, and 
the entire process is automatic. The method 
by which eight messages can be sent over a 
single wire at the same time without inter- 
fering with one another cannot readily be 
described in simple terms. It may give some 
comprehension of the underlying principle to 
say that the heart of the mechanism is in two 
disks at each end of the line, which are divided 
into groups of segments insulated from each 
other, each group being connected to one 
of the sending or receiving machines, respec- 
tively. A rotating contact brush connected to 
the line wire passes over the disk, so that, as 
it comes into contact with each segment, the 
line wire is connected in turn with the channel 
leading to the corresponding operating unit. 
The brushes revolve in absolute unison of 
time and position. To use the same illustra- 
tion as before, the brush on the Chicago disk 
and the brush on the New York disk not only 
move at exactly the same speed, but at any 
given moment the two brushes are in exactly 
the same position with regard to the respec- 

27$ 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

tive group of segments of both disks. If we 
now conceive of these brushes passing over 
the successive segments of the disks at a very- 
great rate of speed, it may be understood that 
the effect is that the electrical impulses are 
distributed, each receiving machine receiving 
only those produced by the corresponding 
sending machine at the other end. In other 
words, each of the sets of receiving and send- 
ing apparatus really gets the use of the line 
for a fraction of the time during each revolu- 
tion of the brushes of the distributer or disk 
mechanism. The multiplex automatic cir- 
cuits are being extended all over the country 
and are proving extremely valuable in han- 
dling the constantly growing volume of tele- 
graph traffic. 

What has thus been achieved in developing 
the technical side of telegraph operation must 
be attributed in part to that impulse toward 
improvement which is constantly at work 
everywhere and is the most potent factor in 
the progress of all industries, but in large 
measure it is the reflex of the growing — and 

recently very rapidly growing — demands 

276 



APPENDIX A 

which are made upon the telegraph service. 
Emphasis is placed on the larger ratio of 
growth in this demand in recent years because 
it is peculiarly symptomatic of a noticeably 
wider realization of the advantages which the 
telegraph offers as an effective medium for 
business and social correspondence than has 
heretofore been in evidence. It means that we 
have graduated from that state of mind 
which saw in the telegraph something to be 
resorted to only under the stress of emergency, 
which caused many good people to associate a 
telegram with trouble and bad news and sud- 
den calamity. There are still some dear old 
ladies who, on receipt of a telegram, make a 
rapid mental survey of the entire roster of 
their near and distant relatives and wonder 
whose death or illness the message may an- 
nounce before they open the fateful envelope, 
only to find that up-to-date Cousin Mary, 
who has learned that the telegraph is as read- 
ily used as the mail and many times more 
rapid and efficient, wants to know whether 
they can come out for the week-end. When 

Cousin Mary of to-day wants to know, she 

277 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

wants to know right away — not only that she 
has her arrangements to make, but also be- 
cause she just does not propose to wait a 
day or two to get a simple answer to a simple 
question. 

Therein she embodies the spirit of the times. 
Our ancestors were content to jog along for 
days in a stuffy stage-coach; we complain 
that the train which accomplishes the same 
distance -in a few hours is too slow. We act 
more quickly; we think more quickly. We 
have to if we want to keep within earshot of 
the band. 

This speeding up makes itself quite obvi- 
ously most apparent in our business processes. 
No body of business men need be told how 
much keener competition is becoming daily, 
how much narrower the margin by which suc- 
cess must be won. Familiar phrases, these. 
But behind them lies a wealth of tragedy. 
How many have fallen by the way? It is esti- 
mated that something less than ten per cent. 
of those who engage in business on their own 
account succeed. How terrible the percentage 

of those who fail! The race has become too 

278 



APPENDIX A 

swift for them. Driven by the lash of compe- 
tition, business must perforce move faster 
and faster. Time is becoming ever more 
precious. Negotiations must be rapidly con- 
ducted, decisions arrived at quickly, transac- 
tions closed on the moment. What wonder 
that all this makes for a vastly increased 
use of the quickest method of communica- 
tion? 

That is but one of the conditions which 
accounts for the growing use of the telegraph. 
Another is to be found in the recognition of the 
convenience of the night letter and day letter. 
This has brought about a considerable in- 
crease in the volume of family and social cor- 
respondence by telegraph, which will grow to 
very much greater proportions as experience 
demonstrates its value. In business life the 
night letter and day letter have likewise 
established a distinct place for themselves. 
Here also the present development of this 
traffic can be regarded as only rudimentary 
in comparison with the possibilities of its 
future development, indications of which are 
already apparent. It has been discovered that 

279 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

the telegram, on account of its peculiar atten- 
tion-compelling quality, is an effective me- 
dium not only for the individual appeal, but 
for placing business propositions before a 
number of people at once, the night letters and 
day letters being particularly adapted to this 
purpose by reason of the greater scope of 
expression which they offer. 

Again, business men are developing the 
habit of using the telegram in keeping in 
touch with their field forces and their sales- 
men and encouraging their activities, in culti- 
vating closer contact with their customers, in 
placing their orders, in replenishing their 
stocks, and in any number of other ways calcu- 
lated to further the profitable conduct of their 
enterprises. 

All this means that the telegraph is increas- 
ingly being utilized as a means of correspond- 
ence of every conceivable sort. It means 
also that with the growing appreciation of its 
adaptability to the every-day needs of social 
and business communication a very much 
larger public demand upon it must be antici- 
pated, and it is to meet this demand with 

280 



APPENDIX A 

prompt and satisfactory service that the tele- 
graph company has been bending its efforts 
to the perfection of a highly developed organi- 
zation and of operating appliances of the most 
modern and efficient type. 



APPENDIX B 

THROUGH the courtesy of J. J. Carty, 
Esq., Chief Engineer of the American 
Telephone and Telegraph Company, there 
follows the clean-cut survey of the evolution 
of the telephone presented in his address be- 
fore the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, 
May 17, 191 6, when he received the gold 
medal of the Institute. 

More than any other, the telephone art is 
a product of American institutions and reflects 
the genius of our people. The story of its 
wonderful development is a story of our own 
country. It is a story exclusively of Amer- 
ican enterprise and American progress, for, 
although the most powerful governments of 
Europe have devoted their energies to the 
development and operation of telephone sys- 
tems, great contributions to the art have not 

282 



APPENDIX B 

been made by any of them. With very few 
exceptions, the best that is used in telephony 
everywhere in the world to-day has been 
contributed by workers here in America. 

It is of peculiar interest to recall the fact 
that the first words ever transmitted by the 
electric telephone were spoken in a building 
at Boston, not far from where Benjamin 
Franklin first saw the light. The telephone, as 
well as Franklin, was born at Boston, and, 
like Franklin, its first journey into the world 
brought it to Philadelphia, where it was ex- 
hibited by its inventor, Alexander Graham 
Bell, at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, 
held here to commemorate the first hundred 
years of our existence as a free and independ- 
ent nation. 

It was a fitting contribution to American 
progress, representing the highest product of 
American inventive genius, and a worthy con- 
tinuance of the labors of Franklin, one of the 
founders of the science of electricity as well as 
of the Republic. 

Nothing could appeal more to the genius of 

Franklin than the telephone, for not only have 

283 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

his countrymen built upon it an electrical 
system of communication of transcendent 
magnitude and usefulness, but they have made 
it into a powerful agency for the advancement 
of civilization, eliminating barriers to speech, 
binding together our people into one nation, 
and now reaching out to the uttermost limits 
of the earth, with the grand aim of some day 
bringing together the people of all the nations 
of the earth into one common brotherhood. 

On the tenth day of March, 1876, the tele- 
phone art was born, when, over a wire extend- 
ing between two rooms on the top floor of a 
building in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell 
spoke to his associate, Thomas A. Watson, 
saying: "Mr. Watson, please come here. I 
want you." These words, then heard by Mr. 
Watson in the instrument at his ear, consti- 
tute the first sentence ever received by the 
electric telephone. The instrument into which 
Doctor Bell spoke was a crude apparatus, and 
the current which it generated was so feeble 
that, although the line was about a hundred 
feet in length, the voice heard in the receiver 
was so faint as to be audible only to such a 

284 



APPENDIX B 

trained and sensitive ea"r as that of the young 
Mr. Watson, and then only when all surround- 
ing noises were excluded. 

Following the instructions given by Doctor 
Bell, Mr. Watson with his own hands had 
constructed the first telephone instruments 
and ran the first telephone wire. At that time 
all the knowledge of the telephone art was 
possessed exclusively by these two men. 
There was no experience to guide and no tra- 
dition to follow. The founders of the tele- 
phone, with remarkable foresight, recognized 
that success depended upon the highest scien- 
tific knowledge and technical skill, and at 
once organized an experimental and research 
department. They also sought the aid of 
university professors eminent for their scien- 
tific attainments, although at that time there 
was no university giving the degree of Elec- 
trical Engineer or teaching electrical engi- 
neering. 

From this small beginning there has been 
developed the present engineering, experi- 
mental and research department which is un- 
der my charge. From only two men in 1876 

285 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

this staff has, in 1915, grown to more than 
six hundred engineers and scientists, including 
former professors, post-graduate students, and 
scientific investigators, graduates of nearly a 
hundred American colleges and universities, 
thus emphasizing in a special way the Amer- 
ican character of the art. The above number 
includes only those devoted to experimental 
and research work and engineering develop- 
ment and standardization, and does not in- 
clude the very much larger body of engineers 
engaged in manufacturing and in practical 
field work throughout the United States. Not 
even the largest and most powerful govern- 
ment telephone and telegraph administration 
of Europe has a staff to be compared with this. 
It is in our great universities that anything 
like it is to be found, but even here we find 
that it exceeds in number the entire teaching 
staff of even our largest technical institutions. 
A good idea may spring up in the mind of 
man anywhere, but as applied to such a 
complex entity as a telephone system, the 
countless parts of which cover a continent, no 
individual unaided can bring the idea to a 

286 



APPENDIX B 

successful conclusion. A comprehensive and 
effective engineering and scientific and devel- 
opment organization such as this is necessary, 
and years of expensive work are required 
before the idea can be rendered useful to the 
public. 

But, vital as they are to its success, the 
telephone art requires more than engineers 
and scientists. So we find that in the building 
and operation and maintenance of that vast 
continental telephone system which bears the 
name of Bell, in honor of the great inventor, 
there are at work each day more than 170,000 
employees, of which nearly 20,000 are en- 
gaged in the manufacture of telephones, 
switchboards, cables, and all of the thousands 
and tens of thousands of parts required for 
the operation of the telephone system of 
America. 

The remaining 150,000 are distributed 
throughout all of the States of the Union. 
About 80,000 of these are women, largely 
telephone-operators; 50,000 are linemen, in- 
stallers, cable splicers, and the like, engaged 

in the building and maintaining of the con- 
19 287 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

tinental plant. There are thousands of other 
employees in the accounting, legal, commer- 
cial and other departments. There are 2,100 
engineers located in different parts of the 
country. The majority of these engineers 
have received technical training in American 
technical schools, colleges, and universities. 
This number does not include by any means 
all of those in the other departments who have 
received technical or college training. 

In view of the technical and scientific na- 
ture of the telephone art, an unusually high- 
grade personnel is required in all departments, 
and the amount of unskilled labor employed 
is relatively very small. No other art calls 
forth in a higher degree those qualities of 
initiative, judgment, skill, enterprise, and high 
character which have in all times distin- 
guished the great achievements of America. 

In 1876 the telephone plant of the whole 
world could be carried away in the arms of one 
man. It consisted of two crude telephones 
like the one now before you, connected to- 
gether by a wire of about one hundred feet in 

length. A piece cut from this wire by Mr. 

288 



APPENDIX B 

Watson himself is here in this little glass 
case. 

At this time there was no practical tele- 
phone transmitter, no hard - drawn copper 
wire, no transposed and balanced metallic 
circuits, no multiple telephone switchboard, 
or telephone switchboard of any kind, no tele- 
phone cable that would work satisfactorily; 
in fact, there were none of the multitude of 
parts which now constitute the telephone 
system. 

The first practical telephone line was a 
copy of the best telegraph line of the day. 
A line wire was strung on the poles and house- 
tops, using the ground for the return circuit. 
Electrical disturbances, coming from no one 
knows where, were picked up by this line. 
Frequently the disturbances were so loud in 
the telephone as to destroy conversation. 
When a second telephone line was strung 
alongside the first, even though perfectly in- 
sulated, another surprise awaited the tele- 
phone pioneer. Conversation carried on over 
one of these wires could plainly be heard on 

the other. Another strange thing was dis- 

289 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

covered. Iron wire was not so good a con- 
ductor for the telephone current as it was for 
the telegraph current. The talking distance, 
therefore, was limited by the imperfect carry- 
ing power of the conductor and by the con- 
fusing effect of all sorts of disturbing currents 
from the atmosphere and from neighboring 
telephone and telegraph wires. 

These and a multitude of other difficulties, 
constituting problems of the most intricate 
nature, impeded the progress of the telephone 
art, but American engineers, by persistent 
study, incessant experimentation, and the ex- 
penditure of immense sums of money, have 
overcome these difficulties. They have cre- 
ated a new art, inventing, developing, and 
perfecting, making improvements great and 
small in telephone, transmitter, line, cable, 
switchboard, and every other piece of appara- 
tus and plant required for the transmission 
of speech. 

As the result of nearly forty years of this 
unceasing, organized effort, on the 25th of 
January, 1915, there was dedicated to the 
service of the American public a transconti- 

290 



APPENDIX B 

nental telephone line, 3,600 miles long, join- 
ing the Atlantic and the Pacific, and carry- 
ing the human voice instantly and distinctly 
between San Francisco and New York and 
Philadelphia and Boston. On that day over 
this line Doctor Bell again talked to Mr. Wat- 
son, who was now 3,400 miles away. It was a 
day of romantic triumph for these two men 
and for their associates and their thousands of 
successors who have built up the great 
American telephone art. 

The 1 1 th of February following was another 
day of triumph for the telephone art as a 
product of American institutions, for, in the 
presence of dignitaries of the city and State 
here at Philadelphia and at San Francisco, 
the sound of the Liberty Bell, which had not 
been heard since it tolled for the death of 
Chief- Justice Marshall, was transmitted by 
telephone over the transcontinental line to 
San Francisco, where it was plainly heard by 
all those there assembled. Immediately after 
this the stirring tones of the "Star-spangled 
Banner' ' played on the bugle at San Fran- 
cisco were sent like lightning back across. 

291 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

the continent to salute the old bell in Phila- 
delphia. 

It had often been pointed out that the 
words of the tenth verse of the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Leviticus, added when the bell was 
recast in 1753, were peculiarly applicable to 
the part played by the old bell in 1776. But 
the words were still more prophetic. The old 
bell had been silent for nearly eighty years, 
and it was thought forever, but by the use 
of the telephone a gentle tap, which could be 
heard through the air only a few feet away, 
was enough to transmit the tones of the his- 
toric relic all the way across the continent 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus, by 
the aid of the telephone art, the Liberty Bell 
was enabled literally to fulfil its destiny and 
"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, 
unto all the inhabitants thereof." 

The two telephone instruments of 1876 had 
become many millions by 191 6, and the first 
telephone line, a hundred feet long, had 
grown to one of more than three thousand 
miles in length. This line is but part of the 
American telephone system of twenty-one 

292 



APPENDIX B 

million miles of wire, connecting more than 
nine million telephone stations located every- 
where throughout the United States, and giv- 
ing telephone service to one hundred million 
people. Universal telephone service through- 
out the length and breadth of our land, that 
grand objective of Theodore N. Vail, has been 
attained. 

While Alexander Graham Bell was the first 
to transmit the tones of the human voice over 
a wire by electricity, he was also the first to 
transmit the tones of the human voice by 
the wireless telephone, for in 1880 he spoke 
along a beam of light to a point a consider- 
able distance away. While the method then 
used is different from that now in vogue, 
the medium employed for the transmission is 
the same — the ether, that mysterious, invisible, 
imponderable wave-conductor which perme- 
ates all creation. 

While many great advances in the wireless 
art were made by Marconi and many other 
scientists in America and elsewhere, it re- 
mained for that distinguished group of Amer- 
ican scientists and engineers working under 
. 293 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

my charge to be the first to transmit the tones 
of the human voice in the form of intelligible 
speech across the Atlantic Ocean. This great 
event and those immediately preceding it are 
so fresh in the public mind that I will make 
but a brief reference to them here. 

On April 4, 191 5, we were successful in 
transmitting speech without the use of wires 
from our radio station at Montauk Point on 
Long Island to Wilmington, Delaware. 

On May 18th we talked by radio telephone 
from our station on Long Island to St. Simon 
Island in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of 
Georgia. 

On the 27th of August, with our apparatus 
installed by permission of the Navy Depart- 
ment at the Arlington, Virginia, radio station, 
speech was successfully transmitted from that 
station to the Navy wireless station equipped 
with our receiving apparatus at the Isthmus 
of Panama. 

On September 29th, speech was successfully 

transmitted by wire from New York City to 

the radio station at Arlington, Virginia, and 

thence by wireless telephone across the con- 

294 



APPENDIX B 

tinent to the radio station at Mare Island 
Navy-yard, California, where I heard and 
understood the words of Mr. Theodore N. 
Vail speaking to me from the telephone on his 
desk at New York. 

On the next morning at about one o'clock, 
Washington time, we established wireless tele- 
phone communication between Arlington, Vir- 
ginia, and Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian 
Islands, where an engineer of our staff, to- 
gether with United States naval officers, dis- 
tinctly heard words spoken into the telephone 
at Arlington, Virginia. On October 22d, from 
the Arlington tower in Virginia, we success- 
fully transmitted speech across the Atlantic 
Ocean to the Eiffel Tower at Paris, where two 
of our engineers, in company with French 
military officers, heard and understood the 
words spoken at Arlington. 

On the same day when speech was being 
transmitted by the apparatus at Arlington to 
our engineers and to the French military 
officers at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, our tele- 
phone engineer at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to- 
gether with an officer of the United States 

29$ 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

Navy, heard the words spoken from Arlington 
to Paris and recognized the voice of the 
speaker. 

As a result of exhaustive researches, too 
extensive to describe here, it has been ascer- 
tained that the function of the wireless tele- 
phone is not to do away with the use of wires, 
but rather to be employed in situations where 
wires are not available or practicable, such 
as between ship and ship, and ship and shore, 
and across large bodies of water. The ether 
is a universal conductor for wireless telephone 
and telegraph impulses and must be used in 
common by all who wish to employ those 
agencies of communication. In the case of 
the wireless telegraph the number of messages 
which may be sent simultaneously is much 
restricted. In the case of the wireless tele- 
phone, owing to the thousands of separate 
wave-lengths required for the transmission of 
speech, the number of telephone conversa- 
tions which may be carried on at the same 
time is still further restricted and is so small 
that all who can employ wires will find it 

necessary to do so, leaving the ether available 

296 



APPENDIX B 

for those who have no other means of com- 
munication. This quality of the ether which 
thus restricts its use is really a characteristic 
of the greatest value to mankind, for it forms 
a universal party line, so to speak, connecting 
together all creation, so that anybody any- 
where, who connects with it in the proper man- 
ner, may be heard by every one else so con- 
nected. Thus, a sinking ship or a human 
being anywhere can send forth a cry for help 
which may be heard and answered. 

No one can tell how far away are the limits 
of the telephone art. I am certain that they 
are not to be found here upon the earth, 
for I firmly believe in the fulfilment of that 
prophetic aspiration expressed by Theodore 
N. Vail at a great gathering in Washington, 
that some day we will build up a world tele- 
phone system, making necessary to all peo- 
ples the use of a common language or a com- 
mon understanding of languages which will 
join all of the people of the earth into one 
brotherhood. I believe that the time will 
come when the historic bell which now rests 

in Independence Hall will again be sounded, 

297 



MASTERS OF SPACE 

and that by means of the telephone art, which 
to-day has received such distinguished recog- 
nition at your hands, it will proclaim liberty 
once more, but this time throughout the whole 
world unto all the inhabitants thereof. And, 
when this world is ready for the message, I 
believe the telephone art will provide the 
means for transmitting to all mankind a great 
voice saying, " Peace on earth, good will tow- 
ard men." 



INDEX 



Ampere's telegraph, 42. 
Anglo - American Telegraph 

Co., 134. 
Ardois signal system, 30. 
Atlantic cable projected, 109; 

attempted, 117, 121, 123, 

133; completed, 124, 136. 
Audion amplifier, 256. 
Automatic telegraphy, 53, 105, 

266. 



Baltimore - Washington Tele- 
graph Line, 86. 

Bell, Alexander Graham, par- 
entage, 140; youth, 141, 
teaches elocution, 146; ex- 
periments with speech, 151, 
161; meets Henry, 158; in- 
vents telephone, 162; at 
Centennial Exposition, 165; 
demonstrates telephone, 170; 
Bell Telephone Association, 
178; Bell-Western Union 
Settlement; Bell and wire- 
less telegraphy, 189; Trans- 
continental telephone, 248. 

Bethell, Union N., 241. 

Blake, Clarence J., 154. 

Blake, Francis, invents tele- 
phone transmitter, 182. 

Branly coherer, 204. 

Brett, J. W., 112. 

Bright, Charles Tiltson, 112, 
120, 125, 128. 



Cable laid across Channel, 108. 

Carty, J. J., youth, 232; enters 
telephone field, 234; Carty 
and the switchboard, 235, 
242; uses metallic circuit, 
238 ; in New York City, 241 ; 
invents bridging bell, 243; 
chief engineer, 244; extends 
long-distance telephone, 246; 
seeks wireless telephone, 253 ; 
talks across continent by 
wireless, 257. 

Clepsydra, 18. 

Code flags at sea, 24. 

Coherer, 203. 

Colomb's flashing lights, 25. 

Congress votes funds for tele- 
graph, 84. 

Cooke, William F., 49, 52. 

Cornell, Ezra, 86, 93, 107. 



Davy's needle telegraph, 44. 
De Forest, Dr. Lee, 225, 256. 
Dolbear and telephone, 185; 

wireless telegraphy, 194. 
Drawbaugh case, 186. 
Duplex telegraphy, 104, 265. 
Dyar, Harrison Gray, 41. 



Edison, and the telegraph, 104; 



299 



INDEX 



telephone transmitter, 180; 
wireless telegraphy, 195. 
Ellsworth, Annie, 85. 



Field, Cyrus W., plans Trans- 
atlantic cable, no; honors, 
125, 136; develops cable, 
130. 134. 

G 

Gale, Professor, 67, 86. 
Gauss and Weber's telegraph, 

43- 
Gisborne, F. N., 109. 
Gray, Elisha, 157, 184. 
Great Eastern, 132, 135, 139. 
Guns as marine signals, 23. 



H 

Hammond, John Hays, 229. 
Heaviside, A. W., 196. 
Heliograph, 29. 
Henry, Joseph, 65, 67, 158, 169. 
Hertz and the Hertzian waves, 

197. 
Hubbard, Gardiner G., 149, 

159, 170, 178. 
Hubbard, Mabel, 148, 166. 



M 

Magnetic Telegraph Co., 93. 

Marconi, boyhood, 199; ac- 
complished wireless telegra- 
phy, 202; demonstration in 
England, 209 ; Transatlantic 
telegraphy, 217; Marconi 
Telegraph Company, 220. 

Marine signals on Argonautic 
expedition, 15. 

Mirror galvanometer, 127. 

Mirrors of Pharaoh, 17. 

Morse at University of New 
York, 66. 

Morse, code in signals, 27; 
parentage, 56; at Yale, 57; 
art student, 59; artist, 62; 
conceives the telegraph, 63; 
exhibits telegraph, 75; offers 
telegraph to Congress, 76, 
91; patents telegraph, 82; 
submarine cable, 83, 107; 
erects first line, 86; dies, 104. 

Multiplex printer telegraph, 
274. 

Mundy, Arthur J., 31. 



O'Reilly, Henry, 94. 



Indian smoke signals, so. gS^fe*^ 

Pupin, Michael I., 247. 

Jackson, Dr. Charles T., 64, Q 

79' Quadruplex telegraphy, 104, 

K 265. 

Kelvin, Lord (See Thomson), & 

*3 8 - Reis's musical telegraph, 157. 

Kwaker captured, 50. 

S 

L Sanders, Thomas, 148, 159, 

Long-distance telephone, 245. 178. 

300 



FEB 9^ 



1949 



INDEX 



Scribner, Charles E., 236. 
Searchlight telephone, 251. 
Semaphore signals, 27. 
Shouting sentinels, 16. 
Sibley, Hiram, 96, 99. 
Signal columns, 19. 
Siphon recorder, 137. 
Smith, Francis O. J., 76. 
Stentorophonic tube, 18. 
Submarine signals, 31. 



Telegraph, first suggestion, 39; 
patented, 82; development, 
264. 

Telephone invented and pat- 
ented, 162; at Centennial, 
165; exchange, 177. 

Thomson, youth, 144; cable 
adviser, 121; invents mirror 
galvanometer, 126; knighted, 
136; invents siphon record- 
er, 137; connection with 
telephone, 169. 

Transatlantic cable (See At- 
lantic cable). 

Transatlantic • wireless tele- 
graphy, 216. 

Transatlantic wireless tele- 
phone, 259. 

Transcontinental telegraph, 96. 

Transcontinental telephone, 
246. 

Transcontinental wireless tele- 
phone, 257. 

Trowbridge, John, 190. 

Troy, signaling fall of, 14. 

Tuning the wireless telegraph, 
222. 



Vail, Alfred, arranges Morse 
code, joins Morse, 70; makes 
telephone apparatus, 72; op- 
erates first line, 90; im- 
proves telegraph, 100. 

Vail, Theodore, joins telephone 
forces, 180; puts wires un- 
derground, 239; adopts cop- 
per circuits, 240; resumes 
telephone leadership, 244; 
talks across continent with- 
out wires, 257. 

W 

Watson, aids Bell with tele- 
phone, 159; telephone part- 
ner, 175; helps demonstrate 
telephone, 175; telephones 
across continent, 248. 

Western Union, organized, 9b; 
enters telephone field, 178. 

Wheatstone, 1; boyhood, 45; 
five-needle telegraph, 49 ; 
single-needle telegraph, 52; 
Wheatstone - Cooke contro- 
versy, 52 ; automatic trans- 
mitter, 53; bridge, 53; op- 
poses Morse, 78; encourages 
Bell, 145. 

Wig-wag system, 26. 

Wireless telegraphy suggested, 
188; invented, 202 ; on ship- 
board, 221; in the future, 
230. 

Wireless telephone, conceived, 
250; future, 260; in navy, 
261. 



THE END 



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